Virtual Memory on Data Drive? - Why? Pagefile.sys Question

March 8, 2019 9:52 AM

I have four drives on my computer: C: SSD with Windows 10 installed P: Backup Drive - external Q: Data Drive - internal X: Data Drive Backup - external My PC has 24 GB of memory. My PC's Virtual Memory setting is set to Automatic. Windows has None for C:, P:, and X:. Windows has 24,576 MB reserved for drive Q:. I'm just trying to do two things. 1) Understand why Windows has so much Virtual Memory assigend to my Data Drive. 2) Free up some space on my SSD where the 24 GB pagefile.sys file is currently residing.

Can I just manually manage and remove it or at least reduce the Virtual Memory to the Recommended 3,959 MB?

posted by Jackie_Treehorn to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: Windows by default will put the pagefile on the fastest local filesystem, and also, by default use a pagefile that is the same size as the installed RAM. This is so that in the case of a crash it can write all of the contents of memory to the error log.

The use case for that log is pretty minimal, but to force windows to use a smaller file, you'll have to set the pagefile manually.

Probably the best answer is to set some on your fast drive, and the rest on some other, slower, drive.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:26 AM on March 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

If you have 24gb of RAM, you can definitely decrease it - even down to 1-2GB. You can try turning it off completely - however, unlike the authors experience, I personally have seen random errors with older software when someone does this - "Windows" makes the assumption generally there is "some" form of virtual memory page file.
posted by jkaczor at 7:05 AM on March 9, 2019

Windows should prevent you from putting your virtual memory on a removable drive, but just in case: don't put your virtual memory on a removable external drive. I'd go with Pogo_Fuzzybutt's recommendation above, using your internal drive Q for the bulk of the storage. Keep in mind that you'll need to restart before you'll see the change take effect.
posted by Aleyn at 11:35 AM on March 9, 2019