Re: [tlug] A Swap Question

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Daniel A. Ramaley wrote:

> I think the recommendation for swap to be 2x RAM is somewhat outdated
> for most applications on new hardware.

Actually, it's outdated for newer versions of operating systems.

The original "swap should be 2x RAM" recommendation came about because
earlier Unix systems' memory manager would commit a page of swap for
every page of RAM in use. Thus, if you had swap equal to RAM, you
effectively had no swap space.

Unless you've got really memory hungry programs that you leave idle for
long periods of time (which is not unusual on desktop systems), you
probably don't need too much swap, since if most memory is actively
being used, and you start swapping, performance will go down the tubes
anyway.

cjs
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Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974
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