Windows VIRTUAL MEMORY, swap drive?

[twitch421]

hey all,
____
i'm running :

windows xp sp 1
on amd athlon xp 2500+
kingston 512 ram
ati radeon 9600+
maxtor 80 gig
____


I set up my system in the following way (for some reason). The following image shows:

1.) Partition magic 8 displaying my partition table:

-------please note that drive E: is a 516 ntfs swap drive that is set up for virtual memory.

2.) MS Virtual Memory
-------see drive E: paging file





My question:

Is this setup doing anything beneficial in any way ? I dont know how i got this idea, but i think it is good.

Can anyone comment on this setup. Should the swap drive be moved so it is closer to E:?

Thanks


twitch421

[beeboy]

Here is an excerpt from an article by Roman Loyola.
"Page partition

One way to improve your page file performance is to create a dedicated partition on your hard drive that serves as your page file -- or better yet, a separate partition on a drive other than the one that houses your operating system. This prevents the page file from being fragmented, which causes the head of the hard drive to jump all over the disk, slowing down performance.

If you are performing a clean install of Windows XP, create a partition for the page file. As a guideline, make the swap file partition about two times the size of the amount of RAM you have. For example, if you have 256 MB of RAM, make the swap file partition 512 MB."

[murph]

I posted a similar question at an experts forum and was told basically the same, plus it's better to have the swap placed next to your O/S or C: drive, if it can't be put on a separate drive altogether. Here's how I 'magically' partitioned my hard drive:

C: O/S and Programs
F: Swap File
G:Games
I: Image and Backups
K: DVD-R
L: CD-R
M: Micro-drive

I have a gig of ram so I custom set the swap file size to a min/max of 2000mb in a 2500 mb partition. This way the swap has less chance to become fragmented but enough area to be defragged or optimized if need be. Haven't really had much chance to test out yet though.

P4C 800 Deluxe
1G Kingston Ram
ATI 9700 Pro video
Audigy2 Platinum sound
Klipsch 4.1 speakers
120 G Western Digital HD
Samsung 172T LCD monitor
Windows XP Home