Improved performance with additional RAM?

[Muchacho]

I have been having what I consider to be excessive fragmentation on my HD dedidicated to sage recordings. I formatted with 64K blocks. I have noticed that recording get broken into two files occasionally and that parts of the show are missing when this happens. This problem is less frequent (although it still happens) when I defrag my HD multiple time a week with diskkeeper. Seeing as this HD is not doing anything except recording shows this seem a bit excessive and not optimal. I was wondering if my performance and sever HD fragmentation would improve with additional ram. Right now I am running an AMD XP 1200+ with 256MB ram. Other than running an apache server which gets maybe only 2 hits/day the sage box is pretty much dedicated to sageTV an an occasional d/l or something. The HD is pretty quick on of those seagate 7200 rpm deals. Any help would be appreciated, thanks, Mike

[mls]

Although Microsoft may list 256M as the minimum RAM for XP, that's really like the minimum it needs to just boot up.

If you are actually doing anything with an XP you really want at least 512M (more if you can get it). Without enough RAM, when you run multiple things, Windows will have to start using the swap file on the hard drive.l

It's very possible in your situation that it's having periods of high swap file usage that could be interfering with the hard drive usage for recording.

I won't say for sure that more RAM will solve your problem, but is sure will not hurt anything to add more. I'd say get a least 512M (more would be even better).

[Muchacho]

Thank you for the info- I was thinking that I needed more, but dont really want to buy anymore old RAM for this box unless someone knows that that is the problem... I have a suspicion that is the issue though.

[mls]

I've had mine do weird things like that when it started getting carried away with the swap file stuff while multi-tasking several things on my Sage server box.

As I said, I can't say adding more RAM will totally solve your problem, but it sure can't hurt either.

One way to double check things though for yourself is to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and click the Performance tab and leave it run for a while. Keep an eye on how the memory and swap file usage as well as CPU usage.

That might be something worth taking the time to study for a bit before rushing to any other conclusions.

[mls]

As I pointed out, for WinXP 512M would really be the mininum required for any real use of that OS. The more RAM the better.

On the other hand though, for those running Win98, anything more than 512M can cause other problems do to Win98's poorer memory management.

I've got some tips for Win98 regarding that (if anybody needs that info), but since most people are now using WinXP or Win2K I won't bother posting them right now.

For those wanting more info about Win98, feel free to PM me and I'll try to fill you a bit more.

[mightyt]

FYI .... Microcoft's XP Pro Requirements ...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...n/sysreqs.mspx

and XP Home Requirements ...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...n/sysreqs.mspx

However, I do agree the more RAM the better .... relaqtively speaking it's cheap.

You might check out some of the responses I got from my Defrag question here ...

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...?threadid=6745

Hope that helps ...

[mls]

Ya, MINIMUM system specs from Microsoft are always interesting. Anyone that goes by them is lucky if the system can boot, much less do anything with it, but heck, that is what a MINIMUM would be right?

As for the defragging of hard drives... That's an area I have mixed feelings about.

Technically, defragging should produce better performance. However, in the real world, with the higher speed hard drives available today it doesn't seem to matter as much as it once used to (actually, some 20 years ago I never saw that much of an improvement if the hard drive was kept reasonably cleaned up of extra files).

RAID is another item that some feel is important. While it can make an improvement in performance for some, for others (like me) it's just over kill and not worth the effort.

What most people don't seem to realize about computers is that is NOT any one single thing that improves performance, it is the sum total of all improvements that add up to better performance.

Any one item... faster CPU, faster bus, faster RAM, faster hard drive, faster video, etc. does little in itself. It's the total combination of all those little improvements that can add up to a major difference.

On the other hand, one single low performance item (if it's the wrong one) can drag everything down to almost useless too.

[mightyt]

Agreed .... These days failure is of less concern and we always want to squeeze every drop of performance out of that box. Then when we get more, we just load it up and expect no impact. I remember how excited I was the first time I saw that music video included with the Win95 CD on my 486. Now I want to capture, edit and burn my own DVD's of my home videos ... and it better be fast too!

Broadband ... Wireless ... and here we are building PVR's that serve out and stream video over the net ... All in all ... I can't get enough of it ...

It's all good!

[mls]

Originally posted by mightyt
I remember how excited I was the first time I saw that music video included with the Win95 CD on my 486. Now I want to capture, edit and burn my own DVD's of my home videos ... and it better be fast too!

Hmm, well the clock speed of my first computer was something lik 169KHz, but I won't get into that here.

Moving up thru the years, at one point had an AMD 80486 - 120MHz CPU (now we're cruising right?).

You mean you were NOT trying to capture video and burn DVD's with your 486 machine? Heck, I sure was (at least trying anyway).

My how times have changed

Unfortunately, now days people buy super fast computers and expect them to do things they are not even designed to do, and then wonder why they can't.

Too bad they didn't get to enjoy (or hate) learning how to make a computer do something like we did with those old klunkers thru the years.

BTW: My old 486 machine still works. Was the FIRST computer I actually watched TV on (old, obsolete ATI AIW video card). I still turn it on every now and then and have bounced between things with it. Had it set up with Smoothwall as a Firewall for a few months.

Hey, as a side point from way back... Did ya ever do any programming in Palo Alto Tiny BASIC? Man those were fun times

[Muchacho]

I just put an order into newegg... I will let you know how it works out. Thanks for the help, Mike

[Muchacho]

So far so good. It seems with an additional 256 or ram my excessive fragmentation is gone and the system runs much smoother. Looking back at it I should have known... Thanks for the help, Mike