Paging File question..

[Dustman]

Hi. I'm curious to know if it is possible to switch the paging file in os x tiger to another partition for a potential performance boost.. and if it is, how?

 

[mad jew]

I haven't tried it, but this might be what you're after...

 

[CanadaRAM]

Hi. I'm curious to know if it is possible to switch the paging file in os x tiger to another partition for a potential performance boost.. and if it is, how?

Do a search here, I think some one posted some Unix command line juju to do this to move it to another physical drive. BUT>

If you mean another partition on the same boot drive, then you wouldn't see any improvement and maybe a drop in performance.

Why? Because there is only one set of heads, they'll still have to transit back and forth between the swap file and the data/code. By putting in on a different partition you do two things -- guarantee the head has to travel further, and guarantee that the transfer speed from the swap file will be slower.

The fastest partition is always the first one created on the drive, because it occupies the outer tracks of the drive (longer track length/perimeter = more bits passing under the heads every 1/7200 of a second). Each additional partition gets progressively slower, until the inner tracks, which can output only 1/2 or less of the data rate as the outermost.

Assuming the OS is in the first partition, any other partitions are bound to be slower.

 

[Dustman]

Do a search here, I think some one posted some Unix command line juju to do this to move it to another physical drive. BUT>

If you mean another partition on the same boot drive, then you wouldn't see any improvement and maybe a drop in performance.

Why? Because there is only one set of heads, they'll still have to transit back and forth between the swap file and the data/code. By putting in on a different partition you do two things -- guarantee the head has to travel further, and guarantee that the transfer speed from the swap file will be slower.

The fastest partition is always the first one created on the drive, because it occupies the outer tracks of the drive (longer track length/perimeter = more bits passing under the heads every 1/7200 of a second). Each additional partition gets progressively slower, until the inner tracks, which can output only 1/2 or less of the data rate as the outermost.

Assuming the OS is in the first partition, any other partitions are bound to be slower.

Thank you very much.