[River]

one of my old computers that one of the kids had just got replaced by a new one, so i took the hard drive out and stuck it in my computer to use it as a second hard drive for the single purpose of the paging file.

i did a quick format on the hard drive but when i look at it i notice that it is 2k cluster and it is "active/primary" and i can not change the cluster size, for whatever reason?

if i am only using this second hd for paging file shouldn't it be "none/logical" and cluster size around 8k?

thanxz
River~

[PangingJr]

it may be because of the partition on the HDD is used to be a Primary and Active partition.

in Disk Management select and Delete the (Primary) partition. and then create a new Logical drive (partition) for the paging file, this should also clear the Active bit.
this newly created partition would be the first partition of the second HDD, and its size would be 2.5 - 3 times the size of the physical memory installed plus around 100-300 MB of spare space. but, this is all up to you.

the paging file used for virtual memory is done in 4 KB chunks which writes very efficiently with NTFS with 4 KB clusters.

the quote below taken from the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article ID : 314878 and is about the default cluster size for the NTFS and FAT file systems.

quoted only for the NTFS...

All file systems that Windows XP uses to organize the hard disk are based on cluster (allocation unit) size, which represents the smallest amount of disk space that can be allocated to hold a file. The smaller the cluster size, the more efficiently your disk stores information.

If you do not specify a cluster size for formatting, Windows XP Disk Management bases the cluster size on the size of the volume. Windows XP uses default values if you format a volume as NTFS by either of the following methods:

• By using the format command from the command line without specifying a cluster size.
• By formatting a volume in Disk Management without changing the Allocation Unit Size from Default in the Format dialog box.

The following table shows the default values that Windows XP uses for NTFS formatting.

Drive size (logical volume) / Cluster size / Sectors

512 MB or less / 512 bytes / 1
513 MB - 1,024 MB (1 GB) / 1,024 bytes (1 KB) / 2
1,025 MB - 2,048 MB (2 GB) / 2,048 bytes (2 KB) / 4
2,049 MB and larger / 4,096 bytes (4 KB) / 8

[River]

Ctrl-Alt-Del

before reading your reply i tried PM8, but received two file error messages, bad file names, when i checked the partitions. i tried about every possible thing i could think of, then read your reply and tried to reformat via Disk Management, but the format would halt, with error messages.

i still was able to create a partition, but only a certain size, the hd was 2 gig, i was able to partition a little over 1.5gigs and set it up for the paging file. the other small partition is where those bad file names are, because every time i would try to do some thing with that partition(format, incorporate that space in to the other partition) the processes were halted.

i was only messing around with this because i just wanted to see what the paging file would do on another hd, and it was something to just geek around with. the hd isn't a good one, some cheapo from 1995, only an AT, so it wasn't going to be a speed boost for the paging file anyway.

it got tossed to the garage along side the tower for the dump later on.

thanxz for your reply, appreciated!

River~

[PangingJr]

a 2 Gig HDD will only give you around 1,8xx MB after formatted and that's reason why you get only 2 KB cluster size. but you can resize it using the PM8.
anyway, since it's an old disk, try to completely format it again in DOS with the disk manufacturer utility program.

[DamentZ]

I dont think your performance will be higher than if your swap file was on your main harddrive. In fact, if the harddrive does not support ultra dma at all, i wouldnt use it for a swap file. While your using your computer your cpu usage will sky rocket whenever you use that drive.