computing speed depends on location of swap partition??

[Raj Mathur <raju@xxxxxxx>]

Interesting.  I've done some thinking about this and have come to the
following conclusions:

1.  Most written directories:

	- swap (ok, it's not a directory!)
	- /var
	- /tmp

2.  Location of swap on a disk:

	In the middle.  If you have multiple Linux partitions on a
disk, make sure that the swap partition is somewhere near the middle
so that seeks to the swap partition are minimised as far as possible.

3.  Location of swap on which disk:

	On a disk different from the one containing the /var
directory, otherwise both will be contending for write access.

So I put my primary swap partition in the middle of my secondary disk, 
while my /var and /tmp are on the primary disk.  Come to think of it,
I should move /tmp also to the 2nd disk -- should get better
throughput that way.  Alternatively, as long as you don't use large
databases or ghostscript too often, and have enough RAM, make /tmp a
ramdisk.

Regards,

- -- Raju

>>>>> "Sundeep" == Sundeep Holani <sandi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Sundeep> Hi, Due to some docs that I was reading I came across an
    Sundeep> interesting (and obvious) fact that computer speeds could
    Sundeep> be higher if data is being accessed from multiple disks
    Sundeep> in parallel. In this context , and in the situation that
    Sundeep> I have 2 hard-disks , would it not boost system speeds if
    Sundeep> the swap partition was on the disk other than the one
    Sundeep> containing the native Linux partitions?  The reason why I
    Sundeep> think the answer should not be very obvious (to me) is
    Sundeep> because I have in mind the way data is multiplexed with
    Sundeep> the single system bus architecture , thus allowing only
    Sundeep> one disk (or device for that matter) to output on the
    Sundeep> system bus at any given time. I perhaps am not being to
    Sundeep> explain my confusion , and thats because I am very
    Sundeep> confused . And if the above proposal could work , does it
    Sundeep> not make sense to place the swap partition on the
    Sundeep> newer-faster-more_cache disk and the main partitions on
    Sundeep> the other , or is it the other way round?? I was
    Sundeep> wondering if somebody could work out a all-win
    Sundeep> partitioning scheme for my following setup..  Hard-disks
    Sundeep> -- 1) segate 2.1 gb , slow , 128 kb cache , 2) samsung
    Sundeep> 4.3gb , faster , 300 odd kb cache .  Required SW..  Linux
    Sundeep> ofcourse... (should get main attention in performance
    Sundeep> gain..)  win-98 , win-nt-4 .

    Sundeep> Regards, Sundeep.

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