How to speed up c++ linking time

Question

Is there any way, to optimalize linking time in MS Visual studio C++ (2005) ? We\'re using Xoreax Incredibuild for compilation speed up, but nothing for link.

Currently

Answer 1

Have you considered improving hardware?
Do you use a separate physical hard drive for for the build? What kind of drives do you use?

As a general suggestion: throw in some memory, get a Velociraptor, put only sources and build directory there, measure again. If that helps, consider a RAID 0.

I've heard reports that upgrading from an XP core to an W2K3 core improved build times notably, presumably due to better memory management and caching.

As a suggestion for changing your code, you could move some functionality to a DLL, and link in parallel. But I'd not make such a change just to improve build times.