Moving Page File from another drive to "C" drive could crash Windows Server 2012 R2?

Question

Hi,

I have an critical Application located in a Windows Server 2012 R2. This server have "C" drive and "E" drive. The "E" drive has almost 10TB of space, but I want to delete/remove it so that I can free up space for other purposes in other servers. However, I cannot remove this "E" drive because there is a page file located in there.

My question is, if I can move this Page File without any risk, I mean, without any Windows crash or whatever related to that. The Application located in this server is critical, that is why I want to make sure that there will not be any impact after moving the location of the Page File from "E" to "C".

The "C" Drive has 200 GB of capacity and normally it is used at the 50% of its capacity.

Answer 1

Hello

Moving the page file from one drive to another on Windows Server 2012 R2 can be done safely, but it requires careful steps to avoid any potential issues. Here are the steps to safely move the page file:

1. Open the System Properties dialog box by right-clicking on "Computer" and selecting "Properties."

Click on "Advanced system settings" and then on the "Settings" button under the Performance section.

Go to the "Advanced" tab and click on the "Change" button under the Virtual Memory section.

Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives."

Select the "E" drive, choose "No paging file," and click "Set."

Select the "C" drive, choose "System managed size," and click "Set."

Click "OK" and restart the server to apply the changes.

It's important to ensure that the "C" drive has enough free space to accommodate the page file. Additionally, performing this operation during a maintenance window and having a backup plan in place can help mitigate any potential risks.