Swap Datastore / pagefile.sys on dedicated datastore

[RabanserD]

Hi everybody,

I have a problem where a workload on one of my vm's is consuming a large amount of RAM, so I was thinking about moving the Windows pagefile on a dedicated vmdk (on a SSD datastore).

I'd also enable the swap datastore (same SSD) for the host and would set the swap file location of that vm to datastore specified by host.

Would that be a good idea to do? How much space would the swap datastore consume?

PS. Extenting the RAM is not possible.

Current configuration:

1x ESXi 6.7 Free (64GB RAM)

• 1 HDD Raid 1 7K datastore
  • OS / Data vmdk's / pagefile.sys / *.vswp
• 1 SSD non Raid  200GB datastore (not used)

Swap Datastore: no

pagefile.sys: system managed

swap file location: default

Desired configuration:

1x ESXi 6.7 Free (64GB RAM)

• 1 HDD Raid 1 7K datastore
  • OS / Data vmdk's
• 1 SSD non Raid  200GB datastore
  • vmdk's for pagefiles
  • Swap datastore
  • swap files of vm (*.vswp)

Swap Datastore: yes

pagefile.sys: custom on SSD vmdk

swap file location: datastore specified by host

[rajen450m]

Hi,

Usually the swap file size is equal to the size of RAM provisioned VM without any reservation and if it is reserved, minus the reservation to the actual provisioned size.

In your case, add all the number of VMs and its swap file and create dedicated datastore for SWAP files.

Actually, saving the swap file along with the VM is a good option and you will face issue during any maintenance....

Regards,

[SupreetK · Accepted solution]

I would recommend reserving the memory (if not full, at least some part of it) on that VM.

Cheers,

Supreet