On 2009-01-23, Stroller <strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote: > > On 23 Jan 2009, at 05:16, Grant Edwards wrote: >> ... I found a very slick solution that lets Windows XP use >> a Linux swap partition for swap/paging/vm/whatever-MS-calls-it: >> >> http://db.bme.hu/~surprof/SwapFs-i/ > > That looks a really cool & useful idea. > > However, I have a reservation. Since you NEED to use it - > perhaps for space considerations?
Yup. Mainly because I use ntfsclone to keep a bunch of backup copies of the NTFS partition, and having a 2GB swap file in every backup copy starts to eat up a lot of disk space. > - the go for it, by all means. But if this driver is slower at > reads or writes than Windows' own NTFS driver then it may > actually slow the computer down. Could be. My understanding is that the system is still using the Windows NTFS driver. I believe that swapfs is a block-device filter driver that sits between the NTFS driver and the bottom layer block device driver (the IDE driver or the SATA driver or the SCSI driver). > In the case of a driver written by an individual, who is > likely not as familiar with Windows' APIs, or who may not be > able to use the private APIs used by Windows' own filesystem > drivers, I find it quite possible the performance may be > questioned. Well, there are several individuals who've worked on it. That said, I can't swear that there aren't performance implications. There probably are, since it adds a layer between the SATA driver (in my case) and the NTFS driver. But, I haven't noticed any visible slow-down, and the machine is more than fast enough for my purposes. Besides, if you're running MS Windows, you've already lost the war when it comes to swapping performance: anybody who cares about swap performance wouldn't be using a normal file on a normal filesystem for it... Someday when I'm bored, maybe I'll google for a file I/O benchmark for windows and run it with and without the swapfs layer. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! INSIDE, I have the at same personality disorder visi.com as LUCY RICARDO!!