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Enhance your overall system performance & ripping performance too!
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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12. February 2005 @ 17:22 |
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I would like to share this: You Windows XP users can easily & fairly inexpensively "Enhance" your overall system performane & also your DVD ripping performance by moving your paging file to another hard drive. I added a 2nd hard drive to my system, making sure it has the same spindle speed & ATA 100 interface
(UDMA 5)then moved my pagefile to that drive. Note: I used the same brand drive as well. Then set my pagefile on my "C" drive (boot drive) to
"No pagefile".On the drive I moved to pagefile to, I set it to a minimum of 1&1/2 times my RAM, which in my case is 1536 megabytes, then set the maximum to 4096 megabytes, which is the MOST you can have. Keep in mind I did this after formatting the 2nd drive using NTFS file sytem. The ONLY thing on the 2nd drive is my pagefile. Now Windows can easily access this while performing multiple I/O requests. This thereby increases performance, especially while using a program like DVD Shrink, which needs that memory! Refer to Microsoft knowlege base articles: 307886, and 314482. I hope this helps someone. I KNOW it helped me!!! Big Time! This turned out to be an inexpensive way to increase my system memory from 1 Gig to 5 Gigs! The 2nd drive was only 55 bucks new! You can't buy 4 more gigs of RAM for even close to that! :)
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bazilla
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14. February 2005 @ 04:19 |
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I'm not going to deny that there is some benefit to putting the paging file on another disk. But to think this is going to have any dramatic effect on dvd shrink is crazy. I was pretty sure, before I began posting this, that dvd shrink is CPU intensive, not memory intensive. So I'm running it right now to see, and its memory usage is flucuating between 60-90 mb. I only have 512 mb of memory total, and here I am running dvd shrink, am on the internet, and have a couple of file windows open, have all the bloat of Windows XP, and I'm not touching the paging file (I'm using about 350 mb of my 512 mb total).
OTOH, CPU usage is at 100%. If you want faster transcoding, get a faster CPU. Adding memory, especially virtual memory, isn't going to help.
Edit: as far as ripping goes, that uses hardly any memory or CPU resources at all. It is an I/O operation where performance is based on the read/write capabilities of the drive, and the speed and type of bus (interface) to the drive.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 14. February 2005 @ 04:24
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ScubaBud
AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 05:41 |
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Setting up a second drive as the paging file drive is fine. If you really want some help with less tasking of your Primary HD or Secondary HD set the paging file to the same min and max so windows doesn't keep adjusting it back and forth.
I agree with bazilla on the memory usage needed by DVD burning software. Just open Task manager and click on performance to see what is happening on your system.
Again, moving the paging file to the hard drive that will be used less by other programs will help a bit in accessing speed, but go one step further and set both min and max to the same if you are really into it for the max effect it could have.
Final note: Nothing replaces good sticks of memory for true speed enhancement.
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dlc2000
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14. February 2005 @ 06:26 |
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i agree with bazilla and scubabud that moving the pagefile to another drive doesnt really do much for dvd backups . if you want to see a real performance increase go with a raid setup if your mb supports it . im able to install xp in under 15 minutes with 2 western digital raptors . also sata helps increase performance too . everything loads faster and reading from the raid is faster and writing to the raid is faster also , if you have a pair fast drives . the raid has not improved my dvd backup times much at all , but it has increased overall system performance .
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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14. February 2005 @ 07:37 |
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I have a Pentium 4 3E Ghz. Prescott with the 1 Meg L2 cache, 800 Mhz FSB. 1 gig of PC3200 DDR Ram, 400 Mhz. running in Dual Channel.WD 80 gig 7200 rpm Caviar HDD with the 8 meg cache buffer.I still say adding the extra 40 gig WD 7200 drive & moving the pagefile has improved my "system" perfomance overall.The boot drive does handle the I/O requests easier now. I can tell a difference.
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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14. February 2005 @ 07:55 |
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Oh, let me add these. My RAM is "Crucial" (Micron) and at 400 Mhz. DDR it is the fastest my MOBO & CPU supports. By the way, My mobo is a Gigabyte brand that DOES support SATA & Raid. However, let me ask you "experts" a question: What ripping & backing up performance increase can be gainedwith SATA/RAID when the FASTEST DVD Burner writes at 16X (UDMA mode 4) and the FASTEST DVD reader reads at 16X and tranfers at UDMA mode 2.?????? can anyone see a "bottleneck" here? Just wondering fellas!
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ScubaBud
AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 09:54 |
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If you have an extra drive, it will allow the system partition and the page file partition to perform writes simultaneously. Increasing the page file will also increase your total virtual memory. Good stuff but not earth shaking. I have it set that way myself. But the key here is so that the HD?s can be accessed faster, the faster the HD the faster the system. The more cache built in the HD like your 8mb, the faster the HD. The faster the spindle speed, 5,400, 7,200, 10,000 the faster the HD. Switching to a faster HD system such as RAID, SATA, etc, the faster the system.
If you get your Task manager then click on Performance tab, you will see Commit Charge. Under that you will see Total, Limit, and Peak. When running your software for ripping and burning, check if your peak ever reaches your Limit number. I doubt that your peak ever reached the limit value. But if it did then this is when a change could be helpful. The peak number will be the highest since system boot. If you have 1 gig of RAM and a page file setting even at windows default, there will be no improvement by upping your page file size for this process. But if you are multi-tasking, which one should not be doing while burning, then maybe you could see a difference.
Lastly these forums are for all users to discuss different topics. Each posts what they believe to be the best information available and of course each is entitled to their opinion. No need to get upset over those opinions.
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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14. February 2005 @ 14:06 |
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Upset? I never get that way . I like "feedback" from any of you. How does a person learn new & better ways to do things without feedback? That said, I do agree that a faster hard drive like a SATA drive improves performance. But I know this for fact. SATA is a relatively new interface, whereas IDE has history. Also, if you run RAID 1,2, etc. "striped" don't you run a risk? I mean if one drive fails in this configuration, you have lost all. On the other hand , if you run RAID 0, "mirrored" if one drive fails you have the same data on your second drive. As for myself, I like to stick with EIDE until SATA drives & MOBO's have evolved more.
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ScubaBud
AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 14:22 |
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I use to say how fast is fast to folks when they wanted to upgrade to a newer PC.
If you look at my sig you see that I like speed too, but I also continue to use IDE mode with my dual drives. I worry about losing even a day of data off my HD's so I back them up daily using Drive Image 7.0 to my secondary. I agree that just because it?s faster doesn?t make it better for the long haul, just like burn speeds.
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AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 14:52 |
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I used to use Drive Image, but got sick of it having to reboot and do it in a dos-type mode. Then one time I actually had to resotre a backup, and it failed. I found that Acronis True Image works MUCH better. It can back up your system drive right in windows, which is nice, and has many more options that drive image.
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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14. February 2005 @ 14:57 |
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I see you run IDE too. Also, I definitely agree Faster is not always better. I started this thread to hint at "Overall" system performance increase by moving the pagefile to a 2nd drive. This should make all system processes like ripping and backing up work "better", not necessarliy "faster. Thanks for all the input! :) I have a DVD writer that writes easily at 12x, however I ussually "burn" at 4-8X.
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ScubaBud
AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 15:05 |
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djscoop
PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0 is windows based and does exactly what you just mentioned. It's set to do an automatic backup every night for me, but it too can run in the background while you work, and make a complete backup of the hard drive. It takes aprox. 8-9 minutes to do my 160 gig with 14 gig used. :)
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AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 15:14 |
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so you're saying it does do its backup in windows? Maybe it was Drive Image 6 I had then. All I know is that it had to reboot and backup in a dos-like mode, took almost an hour, and when I needed it to restore it failed. Glad DI7 works for you though, but after that catastrophy, I found True Image and have been happy with that. To each his own, but as long as it works thats all that matters.
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ScubaBud
AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 15:26 |
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Here are a couple of screen shots of 2 views offered by the program:
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AfterDawn Addict
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14. February 2005 @ 16:21 |
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yeah it looks familiar, but I think I had an older version. as long as it works I guess
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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14. February 2005 @ 17:15 |
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That Drive backup too; looks like a good one! One thing: we have gotten off topic; So can I get anyone here to agree that moving the pagefile to a 2nd hard drive increases "overall" system perfomance? With Windows XP.
Use The Best Media for The Best Burns! TYs, Verbs,(Made in Taiwan) Sony MIJs (YUDEN000 T02), Sony Made in Taiwan DVD+R 16x, Maxell MIJ, RITEK G05.
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bazilla
Member
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15. February 2005 @ 02:44 |
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Quote:
So can I get anyone here to agree that moving the pagefile to a 2nd hard drive increases "overall" system perfomance? With Windows XP.
Sure, I'll agree, if the swap file is needed at all, that it provides better performance to have it on a second hard drive, and in its own partition. But if one is accessing the swap file frequently, that won't help as much as putting another stick of physical memory. Not even close.
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