Page File Partition

Previous to reinstalling XP and everything a couple of months ago I had the page file in its very own partition. Thanks to Disk Director, which recovered all my data partitions after Windows decided to lose them, this was easy to do.

The page file is not in its own partition now, but if I did move it I would have thought it safer to include the pager partition as part of the system backup. But then I thought otherwise because if the partition is there before a restore, it shouldn't need to be backed up.

Or am I missing something. I'm not sure if this is interesting or possibly helpful to anyone, but if anyone has this kind of configuration or has tried it then perhaps your tips could be of use! maybe!

For those who don't know, the advantages could be a faster and more efficient system, especially if the page file is located on another at least as fast HD, and eliminates possible fragmentation - ensures a contiguous page file.

 

The pagefile and Hybfil.sys file don't get imaged - although the file(s) look as though they exist if you mount an image, they are just pointers or placeholders for the real thing.

However, you do need to include the partition in your imaging regimen, because if you need to do a re-install, Windows will probably not work all that well, as it will be expecting a partition to plonk the pagefile on and that partition won't exist. If you include the partition then XP won't have a problem.

Whether XP would automatically build a pagefile to the C: drive in this instance I don't know.

Colin

 

Yeah, I know the files won't be physically backed up, I should have made that point clear (the hiberfile can't be moved can it, is why I didn't mention it).

On restore of C partition, the page file partition would still be there and so be used as before. I doubt there is a physical address pointer to the files - in the event of an offline defrag the page & hiber files would most likely move.

 

I didn't mean pointer as in int *foo, I probably should have just stuck with placeholder.

I wonder if XP would substitute the pagefile back to the default location if it finds the original partition it was in is missing, as registry will still be looking in all the wrong places.

So, I think you'd still have to image the pagefile partition so that the partition structure is correct on restore.


Colin

 

Ok, lol

Think I might try it later and see what happens. I have a feeling XP will hang or crash.

If it is a similar type thing to where the 'My Documents' is located, as long as the location exists it should be ok.

Going round in circles lol, I'll try it out in the next few days, i need a laugh

Thanks for throwing in ideas.

 

My Windows page file is on a seperate hard drive. Therefore no page file fragmentation, less main drive fragmentation and faster performance on its own channel.
As part of my testing of my backup strategy I pulled the plug on the page file drive to see what happened.
Windows created a page file automatically in the root of C drive and the computer carried on working but perhaps a tiny bit slower.
Then reconnected the page file drive and deleted the "temp" page file on C.

Xpilot

 

sparkymachine:

I'll throw in a few thoughts about paging files. If your paging file is on a separate partition on the same hard disk then you aren't doing yourself any favors. The ideal location for a paging file is on another hard disk, like Xpilot described.

Lacking a second hard disk, the next best location is to put it on your system partition in the middle of the data area so that it is equally distant from each end of the partition in order to minimize head seek time. If your partition is full, the paging file should be in the middle. Since most users don't run with full system partitions, a common compromise is to put it about 1/3 of the way from the start of the partition, near the Master File Table (MFT). A program like PerfectDisk will place the paging file and MFT in these locations in order to optimize file lookups and paging operations. It will also make sure that the file is contiguous.

Maybe a little off-topic, but putting the paging file on another partition on the same hard disk will make things worse.

 

That answers that one then, thanks.

 

Good

I use PerfectDisk8 & Rx. Using PDrx only, the page file does fragment so is that not one reason to have it in its own partition even on the same drive? - only an offline defrag with PD8 will defragment the page file if its in the C(system) partition, or am I wrong with that.

Why is that then?

 

Because the distance that the hard disk's head has to travel in jumping between the system partition on C: and the paging file on another partition is larger than it is when the paging file is on C: in the proper location.

 

Well yes, but fragmentation would not occur, and read/writes to the page file tend to be in large chunks so not a lot of frequent jumps out to the page file.
I keep the C drive lean and mean and would have the pager partition right next to C.

Thanks for the comments and stuff, I thinks its all useful.