How To Use An External Hard Drive As Ram For Laptop? Guide

If your computer’s RAM is insufficient, it will have an impact on both performance and speed. It is vital to expand virtual memory at this key period. It’s possible to use your hard drive as RAM in Windows 10. So, I’ll demonstrate How To Use An External Hard Drive As Ram For Laptop?

How To Use An External Hard Drive As Ram For Laptop?

Access the Start menu, and then select Computer with the right-click. Select the Advanced tab from System Properties. Choose the Advanced tab, and then select the Change button close to the window’s bottom. Locate the external hard disk in the list and choose it.

There are two types of memory on your computer: physical memory and virtual memory. Virtual memory is a reserved area of the hard disc, whereas physical memory refers to the RAM chips placed in your computer.

Virtual Memory is used by Windows to store data for programs that are open but not being used. Connect an external hard drive to your computer and set Windows to use it as virtual memory to increase the amount of virtual memory available.

Virtual memory is a memory management approach that allows secondary memory to be used in the same way that primary memory is. Virtual memory is a widely used method in computer operating systems (OS).

Virtual memory enables a computer to compensate for physical memory shortages by temporarily shifting data from random access memory (RAM) to disc storage using hardware and software. Virtual memory, in essence, allows a computer to treat secondary memory as if it were primary memory.

Most modern PCs come with up to 4 GB of RAM. However, this isn’t always enough to run all of the apps a user might wish to run at the same time.

This is where the concept of virtual memory comes into play. Virtual memory can be used to relocate data from a hard drive or solid-state drive to a storage device that hasn’t been used recently (SDD). More RAM space will be freed up as a result of this.

System performance, multitasking, running huge programs, and flexibility are all benefits of virtual memory. Users should not, however, place too much reliance on virtual memory because it is significantly slower than RAM. When the operating system has to swap data between virtual memory and RAM too frequently, it causes thrashing, which makes the machine feel incredibly slow.

How Does Virtual Memory Function?

To function, virtual memory makes use of both computer hardware and software. When a program is running, data from that program is stored in RAM at a physical address.

Virtual memory, in particular, will use a memory management unit to map that address to RAM (MMU). Page tables and other data structures will be used by the OS to create and manage memory mappings. The MMU, which serves as address translation hardware, will convert the addresses automatically.

The data can be moved out of RAM and into virtual memory if the RAM space is needed for something more critical later. The memory manager on the computer is in charge of keeping track of the changes in physical and virtual memory. A context switch can be utilized to continue execution if that data is required again.

The OS splits memory into pagefiles or swaps files with a set number of addresses while copying virtual memory into physical memory. When a page is necessary, the OS copies it from the disc to the main memory and converts virtual addresses to real addresses.

The process of Converting Virtual Memory To Physical Memory, on the other hand, is somewhat slow. As a result, using virtual memory usually results in a considerable decrease in speed. Computers or the Latest Laptops with more RAM are seen to have higher performance due to swapping.

This is a step-by-step guide on how to make paging memory out of your free hard drive space. This will speed up your computer slightly, but not significantly. As a result, don’t expect a significant improvement in performance. If you’re using an SSD, I wouldn’t advocate manually allocating virtual memory; instead, set it to automatic for the best performance.

Steps For Configuring Virtual Memory In A Windows PC

The steps to Configure Virtual Memory In A Windows PC are as follows.

1. Open the Windows Properties dialogue box (screenshot above).
2. Select Advanced System Settings from the drop-down menu.
3. Select the Advanced option from the drop-down menu.
4. Select Settings from the Performance menu.
5. Select Advanced from the drop-down menu.
6. Select Change.
7. Uncheck the box next to ‘Manage paging file size for all discs automatically.’
8. Select any drive; I recommend selecting a drive that you don’t use very often.
9. Select your preferred paging memory size and click Set.
10. Restart your computer.

As you can see in the above screenshot, advised by Windows 10, I’m utilizing 2921 GB. I have 16 GB of RAM, thus I don’t require paging memory to complete any activity.

This is how your hard disc may be used as Virtual RAM. I used it a lot, and it helped a little, but not a lot. This will improve the responsiveness and speed of your system.

If you have a slow internet connection, I have also prepared a guide on how to improve your WiFi signal. That is how you can improve your computer experience by having a quicker internet connection and a faster machine.

Does External Hard Drive Increase Ram?

A computer with insufficient RAM performs poorly, therefore adding more speeds up the PC at a low cost. However, adding an additional hard disk does not boost your RAM.

Conclusion

Above is a simple guide to follow for, How To Use An External Hard Drive As Ram For A Laptop? For example, if you’re lucky, this will increase your performance by at least 20%.

This is how easy it is to use paging memory to upgrade your RAM for free. As I previously stated, this will not increase your RAM, but Windows will begin to use paging memory to execute programs in the same way that RAM does.

Frequently Asked Questions