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I run a number of test systems with Windows 10 Professional installed. All of these systems have a SSD drive with three partitions (C:, D:, and E:) installed. All systems are setup exactly the same way concerning pagefile: "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" is enabled in "Advanced System Settings".

By default, all of these systems have their pagefile reside on drive C: automatically. However, as programs are installed on C:, and the space available there is getting lower, on some systems I notice that the pagefile gets automatically moved to another partition, in my case always D:. This happens on some, but not all of my test systems, even though their storage consumption on c: is the same, and also the remaining space, since all systems have exactly the same partition layout.

So my question is: what exactly triggers Windows internally to move its pagefile to another partition, and can this process be forced in some way? I know that it is possible to manually move the pagefile, that's not what I am interested in, but rather how and when Windows decides to move the pagefily itself.

Is there some documentation about this behavior available?

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  • So my question is: what exactly triggers Windows internally to move its pagefile to another partition, .... So far as I know, Nothing. Managing the pagefile is managing the size. Best practice (so far as I know) is to leave it on Drive C. Find some normal documents to move to another drive.
    – anon
    Commented Oct 4, 2023 at 11:40
  • Maybe at some point drive C: was fuller: perhaps some program stored a load of data there temporarily so you can't see any evidence of that now. Is that a likely scenario, seeing as we don't know what software is running on the machines in question?
    – Andrew Morton
    Commented Oct 4, 2023 at 12:55
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    How big is the pagefile, is its size managed by Windows, how much free space do you have on C?
    – harrymc
    Commented Oct 4, 2023 at 14:43
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    As long as "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" is check windows will do whatever it wants. You need uncheck that, and choose a custom pagefile. Then you can set a min and max size and assign it to a drive letter. Although I have never had this occur, it is likely either when x % of the drive is full or when the pagefile consumes or would consume all available space.
    – cybernard
    Commented Oct 5, 2023 at 16:15

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