Swap file on the RAID!!

[Lantry]

Put your swap file on your RAID and it will make your OS, encoding, and playback fast as S*it!!!

[OptimusPrime22]

What is the SWAP file and how fast did it make your encodes? Just wondering because we are all looking to increase encodes and all. Thanks.

[Lantry]

The swap file is the area Windows uses for all its manipulation above and beyond the RAM. It is the “virtual RAM” all Microsoft OSs use. If you put it on a faster drive it makes everything faster. Do this by right mouse clicking on “My Computer” (properties) then Advanced, and then Performance. Make sure to remove it from your non-RAID drives (XP, 2K) as it will try to use both. Even your browser will be faster if you do this.

[Lantry]

P.S.

Even if you dont have a RAID but have more than 1 drive, if you have the Swap file on a drive that is different then the drive your OS is installed on it will speed up the whole OS... but of course if it is on a RAID it makes it just ass kickin'!!!

[ralfbeckers]

Put your swap file on your RAID and it will make your OS, encoding, and playback fast as S*it!!!

I agree. I use a slight modification of your strategy.

I have the OS on one disc. I have the swapfile on a second disc. And I made a stripe set (RAID 0) from a third and a forth disc that contains the data (VOBs, streams, MPEGS, d2v etc.). Just by adding the RAID 0 encoding time went down 20 to 30 percent. I am only using U2W LVD SCSI discs from IBM (DENS) and Seagate. See system. (I know that my SCSI approach is oldfashioned and dogmatic at best so don't start bitching about it. I respect ATA100 people. 8)

In theory, I could put the entire installation on a single logic drive based on all four discs in a single stripe set. This should be killer but MTBF would go down by 75%, wouldn't it?

[sterno]

In theory, I could put the entire installation on a single logic drive based on all four discs in a single stripe set. This should be killer but MTBF would go down by 75%, wouldn't it?

Oh come on, who cares about reliability? Quite a lot of people buy the cheapest IDE-RAID controller and the cheapest drives they can find. Then they put OS, data, and irreplacable files all on a RAID0 stripe set. They can't all be wrong, can they?

[thefish]

A while ago I used only Raid 0 with no backups, one of my 2 40GB drives failed and I lost everything, over 50GB worth of info (the same thing would have happened with only one hard drive though). Now I have 2 149GB Raid 0 arrays the second one mirrors the first one using Norton ghost. Now if I have a hard drive fail I will not lose any of my data. (This is very similar to Raid 0+1, which I have used in the past).

P.S.

Back to the topic at hand I to have found Raid 0 speeds the encoding process up a lot.

[ralfbeckers]

Oh come on, who cares about reliability? Quite a lot of people buy the cheapest IDE-RAID controller and the cheapest drives they can find. Then they put OS, data, and irreplacable files all on a RAID0 stripe set. They can't all be wrong, can they?

Yeah, right. And when the crap has hit the fan my phone rings of the hook.

The reason I am so paranoid about reliability is that I have a life besides backing up my DVDs and I use my computer for other stuff, too. I haven't even told you that I back up the computer on DDS-2. You can get those drives and tapes to cheap on eBay and it is really cool to back up on tape, totally retro.

Seriously, I would love to have a dedicated machine for SVCD creation but I can't afford the space. Do you think a lot of people run separate computers for fun and for srious stuff? I kinda doubt that.

Someone has started a thread about multi processor boards. This should be fun to read. C U there.

[Lantry]

I guess I am just not cool enough to have more then 80 gigs worth of important data as I keep that on my 0 drive. All my movies, games, etc. i keep on the RAID and if i loose them i figure i will stop crying after a day or two.