RAID 5 + Pagefile question for optimization

[mcatanio]

Hello Everyone,

My current system consists of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, with 3, 1TB Hard drives configured into a Raid 5 Array, and I have 16GB of Memory.

My Pagefile is causing a real annoyance with the performance of my computer because every time it wants to read and write to the pagefile all 3 hard drives need to take their attention away from what I was doing to attend to that then come back to the task I was currently working on.

I'm aware of options such as removing the pagefile all together, but I've heard objections to this stating the Pagefile was necessary.

I've aware of the option to create a 4GB RamDisk in the memory and putting the Pagefile on that, but I didn't fully understand the discussion I was reading in regards to that topic since it never covered the scenario of having a 64 Bit operating system with more then 4 GB of Memory.

I also briefly humored the idea of just getting a small SSD 8 to 16GB or so and putting it in my computer as just the Pagefile but I don't know if it would be worth the investment.

I am also seeing a couple Topics about using a SSD for the Cache, maybe someone could please elaborate more on this and what would be a good way to set this up to utilize it.

I would appreciate any input on the subject on how I can increase my Raid 5 performance especially when it came to dealing with the Pagefile.

Thank you all in advance.

 

[tokencode]

RAID 5 generally has poor write performance which can adversely affect your system performance since the pagefile is random access (read/write). If I were you I would buy a medium sized SSD (60GB-120GB) and ut both your OS and pagefile on it and use your RAID5 for storage. This will give you the best boost to system performance. You might be able to get away with a 30GB. Using an SSD cache would help but not to the same degree as a dedicated SSD for the OS.