Unable to set virtual memory pagefile on another disk

Maxslayerz · Jun 12, 2025

I have a third ssd disk, but when I set up virtual memory on it and turn off pagefile on C drive, it shows "windows created temporary paging file....." and 2GB is still taken from C drive. When I have virtual memory on both C drive and another disk, the other disk still doesn't have any pagefile. I saw that there is a registry key called pagefilegonosvolume that fix this but I don't have this registry key, I manually added it and it didn't do anything

Ghot · Jun 12, 2025

Maxslayerz said:
I have a third ssd disk, but when I set up virtual memory on it and turn off pagefile on C drive, it shows "windows created temporary paging file....." and 2GB is still taken from C drive. When I have virtual memory on both C drive and another disk, the other disk still doesn't have any pagefile. I saw that there is a registry key called pagefilegonosvolume that fix this but I don't have this registry key, I manually added it and it didn't do anything

When you put the page file on a different INTERNAL drive, you have to UN-check: "System managed size"

You can make the page file any size, but the maximum and minimum size should be the same number.
I always use a multiple of 1024MB. Computers like multiples of 1024.

I used 1024 x 8 on my comp.
If you do a lot of image or video editing, you might want to use x16 or x32 etc.

1. Choose: "No paging file" for the Windows drive (C:).
2. Click SET, then it will tell you that you need to reboot. Do that.
3. Then Open up the page file settings again, and choose the drive letter where you want the page file to be located.
4. Choose: "Custom Size", and make the max and min, the same size.
5. Then click SET, again. That should do it.

I've never tried it on an external drive, but I would imagine that it won't work.

Berton · Jun 12, 2025

I don't have that key either. One thing I learned way back was some program installs would look for the swapfile/paging file/Virtual Memory on the same drive/partition as the OS and a minimum size of 2GB. Same for having a TEMP folder. Same for some graphics editing and CAD programs. Also haven't had any luck putting the paging file on USB drives, removable eSATA drive or a NAS drive. Earlier versions of Windows Search for Virtual Memory showed the recommended size as 2.5 times the physical RAM and later versions had it at 1.5 times the RAM.

cereberus · Jun 12, 2025

Berton said:
I don't have that key either. One thing I learned way back was some program installs would look for the swapfile/paging file/Virtual Memory on the same drive/partition as the OS and a minimum size of 2GB. Same for having a TEMP folder. Same for some graphics editing and CAD programs. Also haven't had any luck putting the paging file on USB drives, removable eSATA drive or a NAS drive. Earlier versions of Windows Search for Virtual Memory showed the recommended size as 2.5 times the physical RAM and later versions had it at 1.5 times the RAM.

Those old rules of thumb are very old (a decade plus) when RAM was typically 4GB or less.

With many pcs now having 16+ GB, the need for pagefiling is much reduced. Using those old rules of thumb is ludicrous - you just end up with a pagefile of 24GB.

Nowadays, it is simply better to let Windows decide.

If you must manually set one, you should monitor your page commits in Task Manager to assess how big a pagefile you need.

You would have to have very heavy RAM needs to ever need a 24GB pagefile, and pc would really slow down. In the end, it would be better to increase RAM if possible.

I have 16 GB RAM and can run alao with a Hyper-V session and have never needed a pagefile greater than 3GB.

gunrunnerjohn · Jun 13, 2025

Putting the page file on another drive was old-school when you had rotating memory and access speed was a major concern. Nowadays with SSD, and especially with NVMe drives, it's really a non-issue. I've never changed the settings from the automatic settings on my machines for Win11. I just looked and the pagefile is 4GB. My boot drive is 526GB, and has 367GB free space, so I'm not even thinking about those settings. My machines have 64GB and 32GB RAM, so the page file isn't used much. Other than the fact that certain Windows functions like crash dumps look for the pagefile, it probably isn't much use.

XxXxX · Jun 13, 2025

i place my swap file on a RAMdisk which is set to 1024MB min - 1024MB max
i only have a swap file mainly for legacy programs and software.

the swap is also set to be cleared at shut down/boot or shut down/restart
it is set up this way on two home desktops AiO systems which have 64GB of ram.

best of luck, Steve ..

gunrunnerjohn · Jun 13, 2025

XxXxX said:
i place my swap file on a RAMdisk which is set to 1024MB min - 1024MB max
i only have a swap file mainly for legacy programs and software.

the swap is also set to be cleared at shut down/boot or shut down/restart
it is set up this way on two home desktops AiO systems which have 64GB of ram.

best of luck, Steve ..

If it's on a RAMDISK, no reason to worry about clearing it, that happens pretty automatically at shutdown or reboot. :lmao:

jimbo45 · Jun 13, 2025

Just let Windows do it.

If you though do use physical VHDX files ensure there's enough space on the main disk for a decent paging file that windows wants to use -- i.e if your vhdx file (from which you are running windows) is say 65GB with only say 1GB on the rest of the disk then you'll get all sorts of messages each time you restart Windows. Always ensure if using VHDX files that you've got at least 10GB or so over on the physical disk where you created the vhdx file(s) then no problems.

Cheers
jimbo

OAT · Jun 13, 2025

Maxslayerz said:
I have a third ssd disk, but when I set up virtual memory on it and turn off pagefile on C drive, it shows "windows created temporary paging file....." and 2GB is still taken from C drive. When I have virtual memory on both C drive and another disk, the other disk still doesn't have any pagefile. I saw that there is a registry key called pagefilegonosvolume that fix this but I don't have this registry key, I manually added it and it didn't do anything

The key is PagefileOnOsVolume under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
It gets automatically created when BitLocker is used with a RegDWord of 1.
As discussed at length above, there isn't any performance gain to have the pagefile on a non-OS drive.

XxXxX · Jun 13, 2025

gunrunnerjohn said:
If it's on a RAMDISK, no reason to worry about clearing it, that happens pretty automatically at shutdown or reboot.

not if you have the imaged saved and use the saved RAMdisk image on restart/boot
i also have the Edge browser and FireFox browser cache folders redirected to the RAMdisk
so the RAMdisk holds the swap file for the system and cache folder the Edge and FireFox browsers.

but if any problems occur with either the swap file or the cache folders i can easily clear the RAMdisk
and swap file and cache folders are then reloaded to the RAMdisk. its just me and my awkward little ways.

best of luck, Steve ..

gunrunnerjohn · Jun 13, 2025

With the little use the pagefile gets, having it in RAM vs on one of my NVMe drives seems pretty pointless, at least IMO. When I get down to worrying what might be on the pagefile, I'm pretty deep in the paranoia barrel.

Unable to set virtual memory pagefile on another disk

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