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Performance Boost: Move Page File to Another Physical Drive

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Move Page File to Another Physical Drive

If you have more than one physical drive in your computer, this guide is for you. The page file can take a considerable toll on your system drive; by moving the page file to a separate drive, you can increase overall performance. Learn how to move the Windows Vista page file to another drive in this guide.

Move the Page File to Another Drive

1. Press Start, right click on Computer and select Properties

2. In the left-hand pane, select Advanced System Settings

Move Page File to Another Physical Drive 1

3. Click the Advanced tab and under Performance, select Settings…

Move Page File to Another Physical Drive 2

4. Click the Advanced tab and under Virtual Memory, select Change…

Move Page File to Another Physical Drive 3

5. Uncheck Automatically Manage Paging File Size for All Drives

6. Select the different physical drive that you want your paging file to now be stored on(e.g. D) and select System managed size and press Set. (If applicable, make sure this is the first partition on the second drive)

Move Page File to Another Physical Drive 4

7. Select the drive that contains your paging file (usually C), select the Custom Size option, set the original and maximum size, and press Set

Move Page File to Another Physical Drive 5

Your page file will now need to rebuild on the new drive–this may temporarily slow performance.

Note: The reason for keeping around 1GB on the OS drive is because Windows Vista needs still some pagefile space on the OS drive.

Further Reading:

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12 Responses to “Performance Boost: Move Page File to Another Physical Drive”

  1. Falcon4 says:

    It’s much faster, and just as stable, to just disable the damn thing.

    No Windows operating system - and no program - since XP SP2, has required a page file of any size on any drive. However, if you set your PF too small, it’ll still be in “page file mode” and will start complaining about a small page file.

  2. Kevin says:

    Regarding the “No Windows operating system - and no program - since XP SP2, has required a page file of any size on any drive. ”
    Sorry but that is NOT so…
    Windows XP thru Vista was meant to have a pagefile regardless of how much ram is in the pc.
    Try running Vista with 2GB of ram without a pagefile……..

  3. krilleSWE says:

    i have one physical drive in 2 partions and want to unload space from c into d, is it possible to put d as page file? (i just want to unload space not gain a performance boost althou i dont want a negative performance out either)

  4. Rich says:

    Yes, you can do it, but I don’t recommend it. However, I recommend you extend the C partition at the expense of some space on D. i.e. C +10gb D -10gb.

  5. Kevin says:

    There is no way that putting the pagefile on the same hard drive as windows but in a different partition will make any difference.
    ALL it will do it cause problems.
    IF only one hard drive then pagefile stays on drive C(where windows is).
    IF on the same drive but on a partition away from windows then you will cause big problems.
    Also NOT having a pagefile will cause problems.
    Regardless of whoever said that Windows or programs have NOT needed a pagefile since SP2 then that is NOT so.
    Windows has to have a pagefile.
    Windows WILL use virtual ram(pagefile)as and when needed.
    IF no pagefile then you WILL run out of real memory!!

  6. Rich says:

    I agree Kevin; thanks for your input.

  7. krilleSWE says:

    ty rich and kevin, i did end up just resizeing the partion, and on a little *Doh!*-side note, i had 170 gb free in unalloclated, i just took for granted that vista install put all in partion 2 however it was capped at 98gb.
    oh a lot of dabbling went on with diffrent parion manager-programs in the end what worked was vista(what i did not even existed*tip*) disk-program, that worked out great. anyhow thanks for a nice site! and sorry for long “comment” feel free to do whatever with it :) //ciao from sweden.

  8. Larry Miller says:

    This article contains the usual myths about the pagefile.

    Do not put the pagefile on a different partition than Windows if it is on the same physical drive. Doing as the author suggests would improve the data transfer rate to the pagefile. But this is rarely a major factor in performance. The biggest factor is seek time, and to minimize this the pagefile must be as near as possible to the other files. Microsoft recommends putting the pagefile on the most active partition of the least busy disk.

    The biggest myth is that the initial amd maximum size must be the same for optimum performance. This is simply not true. If the initial size is large enough to avoid virtual memory warnings there will be NO pagefile resizing and no fragmentation. For practical purposes you will have a fixed pagefile. But set the maximum at least twice this value. This gives all the advantages of a fixed pagefile, yet it is able to grow to meet unusual needs. After a reboot (or sooner) the pagefile will revert to it’s initial size. At no time set the maximm larger than 4GB as 32 bit Windows can use no more. Incidentally, fragmentation in the pagefile is rarely a performance issue except in extreme cases.

    A maximum value that is too small can severely impair performance. Also, do not disable the pagefile. In some cases this may improve performance but usually the reverse is true.

    Larry Miller
    Microsoft MCSA

  9. Rich says:

    Larry, thanks for your insight. As stated in the article, I only recommend moving the pagefile to another physical drive (not partition.)

  10. Kevin says:

    Point1: Putting the “swapfile(pagefile)on any partition on the same drive as Windows is no good and will cause problems.
    Point2: Putting the file(swap/page) on any partition that already has ANY file or files on will cause problems.
    Point3: creating a dedicated partition just for swapfile/pagefile use at the front of a hard drive(not where windows is)WILL let windows get on with whatever it needs on one drive and let windows use the space for virtual ram as and when needed on another hard drive.

    Also it is best to let Windows manage min and max size of swapfile(pagefile) and NOT set fixed sizes.
    I have a dedicated SEVEN gig partition just for virtual ram and sometimes it gets as high as 6 GB in use.
    “At no time set the maximm larger than 4GB as 32 bit Windows can use no more.”
    Sorry but that is NOT so……….

  11. Bill says:

    I’m trying to set up a vista swap file on a ssd expresscard (8gig) I have found you cannot move the swap file off the c drive completely although you can set it for a miimuum (I use 256 megs). If you disable the c drive swap file ALL the swap files are disabled on reboot. You also cannot set it for more than 4095 megs either. It won’t accept that. Not opinion just the facts as I have found them using Vista sp1.

  12. lalie says:

    On a server if I want to move pagefiles to a different drive, do I have to stop sql? Or just follow the steps without stopping anything

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