Migrating UE to new computer

[dl marshall]

You have just one HD in your box ?

When not, create a shared partition on a drive that has only data, none of your OS systems.

Robert

[MilesAhead]

You have just one HD in your box ?

When not, create a shared partition on a drive that has only data, none of your OS systems.

Robert

The rule of thumb I was taught, one physical HD for executables,
one for data, one for swap.

Of course until recently it was a hassle to put more than 2 physical hard drives on a PC running Dos/Windows. And now many machines are coming with enough ram so you don't even need to run swap.

But, it worked for minicomputers.

[dl marshall]

You have just one HD in your box ?

When not, create a shared partition on a drive that has only data, none of your OS systems.

Robert

The rule of thumb I was taught, one physical HD for executables,
one for data, one for swap.

You're not getting it.

I ask you whether you have only one HD in your box.

• Then I assume that this is not the case with "When not," as in "no I have more than one HD in my box"

Then I'm even suggesting to "create a shared partition on a drive that has only data, none of your OS systems.".

• "shared" as in "the partitition is shared between Windows Vista and Windows XP" (for example!).
• "only data, none of your OS systems" as in "on that particular HD only data is stored and none of your Operating Systems is installed".

To achieve all this, you've got to have at least 2 HDD in your box. Better try to understand what you read next time.

Of course until recently it was a hassle to put more than 2 physical hard drives on a PC running Dos/Windows. And now many machines are coming with enough ram so you don't even need to run swap.

But, it worked for minicomputers.

Recently ???
Which rock have you been living under ?
I have a Cooler Master Stacker STC-T01 that's with me for 4 years now. Go visit Cooler Master's website and check how many HDs fit into this case.

You don't even need to run swap ???

from this page
How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP
"... However, as more RAM is added to a computer, the need for a page file decreases. If you have enough RAM installed in your computer, you may not require a page file at all, unless one is required by a specific application.

When no page file exists, or the page file is insufficient, the system reserves some virtual memory in the physical memory for its paging needs. ..."

(see quoted text in bold and underlined)
So if an application requires/demands a page/swap file, you MUST create it to be able to run it (so even if you would have had Terra or Peta bytes of RAM in your box). For example Photoshop, 3DS Max.

(See text quoted in bold only)
Further if there is no page/swap file, Windows will create a page/swap file in RAM for its own needs.

So go ahead and delete the page/swap file. Reboot and then try to run some applications. Photoshop will throw you a warning dialog at startup. 3DS Max will refuse to start. Or wait for Windows to slowly eat up your box's precious GBs of RAM memory.

EDIT : Get your pagefile right here : The Page File, SuperFetch, and ReadyBoost
Quoting the author :

If you think you can run your machine optimally without a page file you do not understand how Vista (or any NT based OS works).
(Please don’t email me to argue this, I won’t respond. Find a forum to argue about it.)

[Josef K]

In real terms, stick UEs DB directory on the first partition on the disk and point both UEs to it. Thrashing will happen wherever it is located (on any disk, separate or otherwise) if it is necessary to thrash it at all. Use the first partition if you have space for it for the best speed (closer to the front of the disk). Do not use an external (USB externals will be slower). eSATA externals are faster but it all externals come preconfigured to power down after some time. It's still an ordinary HDD inside and they are usually rated for around 40,000 spin up/down cycles so you could end up shortening its lifespan by running the UE DB off it. An internal HDD will spin as long as the system is powered up and you haven't set power saving to power you drives down.