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BassKozz
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2 XP Guests, Turn off Paging?

If I am running 2 Windows XP Guest VM's at the same time, would it be benificial to turn off paging, So that way both VM's aren't accessing the HD as a Paging file at the same time (slow down) ?

p.s. Each VM has 1.5gb RAM alloted to it.

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VMware Workstation v6.0.2 build-59824

Host OS: Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit

--- VMware Workstation v6.5.0 build-118166 Host OS: Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit
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magic-man
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I also found that using a separate virtual hard disk for the swap file in the guest speeds things up.Did the separate virtual hard disk reside on a separate local disk also? or just two separate virtual HD's on the same Local HD?

Same physical disk... I am sure you MAY get a bit more if you used a different physical drive, but mine are removable so I can't always connect to the other physical drive. It also helps keep fragmentation of the VM down. I have my swap VM drive set to non persistant.

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BassKozz
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I also found that using a separate virtual hard disk for the swap file in the guest speeds things up.Did the separate virtual hard disk reside on a separate local disk also? or just two separate virtual HD's on the same Local HD?

Same physical disk... I am sure you MAY get a bit more if you used a different physical drive, but mine are removable so I can't always connect to the other physical drive. It also helps keep fragmentation of the VM down. I have my swap VM drive set to non persistant.

I am running into a problem w/ your suggestion magic-man,

I setup a separate virtual disk = 2Gb Independant/Non-Persistant/Allocate All Disk Space Now

I then logged on to XP formated the disk (NTFS) and then setup the Virtual Memory settings, removing the SWAP from my C: drive and moved it to my new virtual disk (E:), rebooted the VM, and all was fine and well, until I shutdown the computer...

Non-Persistant = Changes to this disk are dicarded when you power off or restore a snapshot

So how did you use "Non-Persistant" for a SWAP virtual drive? Did you have to re-set it up every time you shutdown the VM?

--- VMware Workstation v6.5.0 build-118166 Host OS: Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit
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continuum
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No need to change this after every boot.

Start with swap-disk set to persistent.

Boot once and configure to use pagefile on second disk.

Check if pagefile.sys exists on D:\

If it exists immediatly shutdown again - just to make sure the initial state of the disk is as small as possible.

Now set second disk to "non-persistant"

bingo

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Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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jimbo45
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Don't forget that you can also turn off the paging in the Guest OS itself

Control panel ==> system ==>advanced==>performance

Cheers

-J

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BassKozz
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No need to change this after every boot.

Start with swap-disk set to persistent.

Boot once and configure to use pagefile on second disk.

Check if pagefile.sys exists on D:\

If it exists immediatly shutdown again - just to make sure the initial state of the disk is as small as possible.

Now set second disk to "non-persistant"

bingo

Worked like a charm :smileygrin:

If it exists immediatly shutdown again - just to make sure the initial state of the disk is as small as possible.

Not really nessesary because I used the "Allocate All Disk Space Now" option which created the 2GB Shell anyways... correct?

Also by using the "Allocate All Disk Space Now" option, it should be slighly faster then otherwise, because it doesn't have to allocate that space as the VM is running... correct?

Thanks for all the help Smiley Happy

--- VMware Workstation v6.5.0 build-118166 Host OS: Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit
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continuum
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Why do you want to waste space for a disk that you plan to discard after use anyway ???

When I used this procedure I created a 6 Gb sparse disk - put a 4096 Mb pagefile on it and the VM that used it was happy about the large pagefile.

Due to the nonpersistant-flag the file actually newer grew larger than a few MBs - seen from the host.

Looks like VMs do not use pagefiles to that extend that real NTs use it - they seem to be happy if you just promise them that the large pagefile is there.

Anyway - find out best practice for your usage.

Nowadays I almost never use this second disk as I found that it is not really required. YMMV

description of vmx-parameters:

VMware-liveCD:


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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BassKozz
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Why do you want to waste space for a disk that you plan to discard after use anyway ???

When I used this procedure I created a 6 Gb sparse disk - put a 4096 Mb pagefile on it and the VM that used it was happy about the large pagefile.

Due to the nonpersistant-flag the file actually newer grew larger than a few MBs - seen from the host.

Looks like VMs do not use pagefiles to that extend that real NTs use it - they seem to be happy if you just promise them that the large pagefile is there.

Anyway - find out best practice for your usage.

Good point... I did you one better.

  1. Start VM w/ extra Virtual HD set to Persistant.

  2. Format HD w/ NTFS

  3. Shutdown VM

  4. Set HD to Non-Persistant

  5. Start VM and changed Page file from C: to E:

  6. Shutdown and reboot.

So instead of setting up the Paging while the HD is in Persistant mode, I simply do this once it's switched to Non-Persistant, which keeps the HD size to a minimal...

The extra HD is only 34Megs when the VM is off, and who cares how big it gets when the VM is on because once it gets shutdown it flushes memory thanks to "Non-Persistent"

Thanks for all the help :smileygrin:

Nowadays I almost never use this second disk as I found that it is not really required. YMMV

Really, why is that? So much excess RAM?

--- VMware Workstation v6.5.0 build-118166 Host OS: Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit
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continuum
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I guess that both procedures produce more or less the same results. When I used that trick frequently it was the time of 2k and 2k didn't like if the pagefile.sys was not present where it was expected.

Since XP and 2k3 this is different - it is enough if the path is set in registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PagingFiles

Really, why is that? So much excess RAM?

Excess RAM ? - on my machines ? - never Smiley Wink

No I just stopped it after some months cause I thought it was not worth the effort - maybe I was getting lazy Smiley Wink

Never made any benchmarks though ...


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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magic-man
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into a problem w/ your suggestion magic-man,

I setup a separate virtual disk = 2Gb Independant/Non-Persistant/Allocate All Disk Space Now

I then logged on to XP formated the disk (NTFS) and then setup the Virtual Memory settings, removing the SWAP from my C: drive and moved it to my new virtual disk (E:), rebooted the VM, and all was fine and well, until I shutdown the computer...

Non-Persistant = Changes to this disk are dicarded when you power off or restore a snapshot

So how did you use "Non-Persistant" for a SWAP virtual drive? Did you have to re-set it up every time you shutdown the VM?

Sorry about that... I omitted one important thing in setting it up...

First, set up the extra drive in the VM as persistant growable.

Boot the VM, format the new drive, Then set the swap file to that drive. Allow the VM to reboot. After the reboot is done, shut down the VM and set the new drive to non persistant at that point.

Smiley Happy

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magic-man
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Why do you want to waste space for a disk that you plan to discard after use anyway ???

When I used this procedure I created a 6 Gb sparse disk - put a 4096 Mb pagefile on it and the VM that used it was happy about the large pagefile.

Due to the nonpersistant-flag the file actually newer grew larger than a few MBs - seen from the host.

Looks like VMs do not use pagefiles to that extend that real NTs use it - they seem to be happy if you just promise them that the large pagefile is there.

Anyway - find out best practice for your usage.

Nowadays I almost never use this second disk as I found that it is not really required. YMMV

I only use the pagefile method on software (like AutoCAD) and some that really crap out without the page file.. None of my VM's are set to use mre than 256 megs of RAM so a page file sometimes has to get used. Good insurance when things get tight.

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magic-man
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So instead of setting up the Paging while the HD is in Persistant mode, I simply do this once it's switched to Non-Persistant, which keeps the HD size to a minimal...

The extra HD is only 34Megs when the VM is off, and who cares how big it gets when the VM is on because once it gets shutdown it flushes memory thanks to "Non-Persistent"

34 Megs?? Should be around 8.... Did we forget to mention that you don't need system restore turned on Smiley Wink

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continuum
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Magic-man - did you use fat32 partitioned swap-disk ?

.. or used a very small disk ?

8 Mb is pretty small !


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Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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BassKozz
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So instead of setting up the Paging while the HD is in Persistant mode, I simply do this once it's switched to Non-Persistant, which keeps the HD size to a minimal...

The extra HD is only 34Megs when the VM is off, and who cares how big it gets when the VM is on because once it gets shutdown it flushes memory thanks to "Non-Persistent"

34 Megs?? Should be around 8.... Did we forget to mention that you don't need system restore turned on Smiley Wink

I would assume System Restore would only effect the main OS disk (C:), and not the secondary drive (E:) which is just being used for SWAP/Page file?

Magic-man - did you use fat32 partitioned swap-disk ?

.. or used a very small disk ?

8 Mb is pretty small !

>

Should I have formated w/ another format? I used NTFS.

--- VMware Workstation v6.5.0 build-118166 Host OS: Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit
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continuum
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no - ntfs is fine - some guys argue that fat32 is slightly faster - so may be better suited for a pagefile ...

I was only wondering about magic-man's small disk - so I assumed he used fat32


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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magic-man
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Magic-man - did you use fat32 partitioned swap-disk ?

.. or used a very small disk ?

8 Mb is pretty small !

NTFS all the way. Smiley Happy

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magic-man
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I would assume System Restore would only effect the main OS disk (C:), and not the secondary drive (E:) which is just being used for SWAP/Page file?

Should I have formated w/ another format? I used NTFS.

System restore activates on all drives by default in XP. Go to system restore settings and disable it on the swap drive, then it will remove the junk. Then shrink the virtual disk (after defrag).

Personally, I removed system restore from my Win XP image for the VMs... Not needed in my case, I just back up the VM directories.

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magic-man
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I would assume System Restore would only effect the main OS disk (C:), and not the secondary drive (E:) which is just being used for SWAP/Page file?

Should I have formated w/ another format? I used NTFS.

By default, system restore activates for all new drives, even empty ones. Go into system restore settings in the VM and turn it off for the swap drive.

Personally, I remove system restore from the install image before I install to the VM, as I make ackups of the VM (and make a snapshot before I install new stuph).

NTFS is fine. Make sure you shrink the disk in VMWare and defrag it.

If you want, e-mail me and I will zip up the swap disk for you and send it. () Also, be sure to visit sanbarrow.com which is the site of one of the major gurus in this forum.... Lotsa tips, links, etc... Learned a lot from him (Hahahah whats that on my nose?) Smiley Happy

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