Thread: Partition Magic
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Old 2005-07-21, 09:43 PM
Ted Ted is offline
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Join Date: May 2005
Re: Partition Magic

Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzbo
sigh. If you allow Windows to dynamically allocate the swap file, there is a very good chance it will fragment under heavy use. Only if you set it to a static size (not a good idea, IMO) it will not fragment.

But if you're current 'green patch' is X big, and Windows needs X+1 of swap tomorrow there is no guarantee there it will expand on the end of that, or that the location is even available. So fragmentation is certainly likely.

Now the real life application of this is that people rarely max out the swap file (then again the default is enormous if I remember right) -- but there is no reason why it couldn't fragment -- but I think that's why you folks are reporting not seeing fragmentation.

I know some people who tweak their machines to the nth degree, who move their swap into a wholly separate partition into the first area on the disk, and then create the bootable partition with the OS after that, and then create the partitions for applications and/or data. This allows for speedier access to the swap and more or less eliminates the possibility of the swap fragmenting.
Technically, you have a point and "got" me, but the swap file is only "temporary" storage and any fragmentation of data that occurs within the confined space on the hard drive that it occupies is negligible because the data it stores is indeed dynamic.

Before this goes any further, I'm going to stop right here because you seem to know what you're talking about too and I think in the end we'll probably end up "agreeing".
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