Expanding RAM using microSD on Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Question

I need to expand memory on my Microsoft Surface Pro 3 on which I recently installed Windows 10.

I heard there is a procedure to use a microSD to expand the RAM and use the space as a real hard disk (using bin etc).

Does anybody know how to proceed? I heard things are different with Windows 10.

Solution

Sorry but no. You cannot use a MicroSD card to expand your RAM. RAM is RAM. A MicroSD card does use solid-state storage (as does RAM) but it's presented to the system as if it was a disk drive. You use it to store files, same way you would a USB flash drive.

You can't put swap or pagefile space on a MicroSD card (or a USB drive) either, because it's removable. Windows does not allow you to use a removable device for a pagefile or swapfile, since removing it would be very likely to cause the OS to crash.

As Timmy Jim said, on many systems you could allow Windows to use a MicroSD card for a Windows feature called ReadyBoost. (This is probably what you heard about.) ReadyBoost allows Windows' "SuperFetch", which is a predictive file cacheing mechanism, to use a removable flash drive for cache space. Without it, SuperFetch can use only RAM. However SuperFetch only ever uses RAM that has been marked "available" by the OS (more precisely: it uses RAM that's on the standby page list, which is part of what e.g. Task Manager reports as "available"), and it is still "available" for immediate other use even when SuperFetch is using it... so ReadyBoost will not result in an increase in "available" RAM.

If your RAM is really marginal, though, ReadyBoost can allow SuperFetch to be more effective than it otherwise would be. It may also improve paging behavior for programs (since SuperFetch will not be repurposing so much RAM from the Standby Page List, RAM that might otherwise help resolve page faults from running programs).

HOWEVER, I doubt very much that SuperFetch is active on your machine at all (and giving SuperFetch more room to work in is the only point of ReadyBoost).

The Surfaces use a solid state drive (SSD) instead of a hard drive, and Windows automatically disables SuperFetch on systems with SSDs (because the SSD is so fast that SuperFetch doesn't make much difference). Certainly there would be no point cacheing stuff from an SSD onto a MicroSD card, as reading it from the MicroSD card later will be considerably slower than just reading it from the SSD in the first place.

So, in conclusion: Sorry, but the MicroSD card is not likely to help your system's performance in any way. You can't use it as RAM, you can't put a pagefile or swapfile on it, and since your machine has an SSD there would be no point using it for SuperFetch (via ReadyBoost) even if Windows was running SuperFetch on your machine - which it isn't.

You can use it the way you would use a USB flash drive, for portable storage.

Comments

[masgo]

Do you want to expand your RAM or your hard disk space? Expanding RAM will not work properly. You can only expand your hard disk space and make it available as swap space.

[MonicaS]

Thank you, I would like to have both, but if you say that expanding the RAm is not going to work i guess i have to deal with swab space. i would like to know if a microSD works exactly asif I used a usb device

[MonicaS]

Ok thank you I will try to do that. Thanks for your help

[Jamie Hanrahan]

See my answer. ReadyBoost's sole function is to give SuperFetch more room to work in, and SuperFetch is disabled on systems with an SSD - like the Surfaces. So while MicroSD cards might help SF work better on some machines, on a Surface there's no SF operating at all, so...