andahl'* law: your system is only as fast as the slowest component. Slower drive for virtual memory = slower overall configuration.

Just my .02

but it also takes time for the main drive to write the swap file, go back to what it was doing, then read/write, then swap, then other, etc.


i figure that if the good drive is more then twice as fast, with low seek times, it will slow it down. but i am currently running a 6 gig with the swap file and an 80 gig main, and observed a noteable differance for the better. need to do it again since i just reformatted.

In a nutshell:

DEW ET!

unless you went out there and bought the fastest drive on the market

Excellent point! I agree.

If the second hardrive is slower then the primary one, would it be beneficial still? I would think it would slow the whole process down, or at least be the same :?:

I guess that to truly know you'd have to conduct a benchmark. Lots of factors to consider:

* Speed of the secondary drive
* Accessing multiple drives on the same bus
* Combining a faster drive with a slower drive on the same bus
* Seek reduction on primary drive by having secondary drive (this was Rjolly'* argument and I think it might end up being the predominant factor)

If you were to conduct a benchmark, you would need to conduct one with 1) just the faster drive and 2) both the faster and slower drive. Make sure to take a benchmark on the faster drive in both cases (just to make sure that the slower drive isn't slowing down accesses on the faster drive)