Configure Hyper-V To Use Page File

James Anderson 21 Reputation points
2022-07-13T15:01:55.173+00:00

I have a Windows 10 system with several VMs in Hyper-V. The system ram usage is often over 90%.
I have connected two 4TB m.2 drives where the system page file is located.
I would like to configure Hyper-V to use the system page file for the VMs, because the m.2 drives are very fast and I am sure it will take a performance hit but still be usable for my purpose.

By default, Hyper-V is not moving the VM's allocated RAM into the page file even when system RAM usage is very high. This is what I want to change.

Windows for business | Windows Client for IT Pros | Storage high availability | Virtualization and Hyper-V
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  1. Peter Holly 86 Reputation points
    2022-07-18T22:28:37.543+00:00

    Looking on my system it appears that the guest operating system running on the VM handles memory paging. Thinking about it this makes sense because the guest OS will be better able to determine how data in memory is being used to minimize the performance impact of paging. It seems the easiest solution is to assign each VM a VHDx that is located on the new drives and configure each guest OS to use that virtual drive for the page file. RAM usage will probably stay very high since it is better to use up all the RAM before aggressively moving stuff to page files. If you really want RAM usage to show a lower number you would probably have to set a lower maximum amount of RAM in the hyper-v setting for each VM to force the guest operating system to make more use of the page file.

    This all assumes your using dynamic memory for the VMs. Also see https://free.blessedness.top/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2008-R2-and-2008/ff817651(v=ws.10)

    1 person found this answer helpful.

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