new memory = more swap?
Kent Borg
kentborg at borg.org
Thu Mar 25 20:11:50 UTC 2004
On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 02:21:24PM -0500, duncan brown wrote:
> well, yes and no. the old '2 x memory = swapsize' addage is sort of
> outdated.
My suggestion, if you have a reasonably modern machine and have enough
disk space, is to use 1 GB of swap. Period.
Current Linux kernels, and current disk and bus speeds, just seem to
fit 1 GB. With a little RAM it is possible to use a good chunk of
that without being unusably slow. On machines with tons of RAM,
having a "little" swap--an amount that is well less than your
RAM--seems cheap and harmless insurance. On in between machines I
have seen the kernel use swap even when there seemed no particular
reason. It seems to like swap.
Having less than 1 GB doesn't save much, and having more is hard to
imagine using.
An exception: if you have a specific data set that is X-big, then
certainly make your swap plus RAM big enough to easily handle X-bytes
with some extra slop. Also make sure your RAM holds your working set.
Another exception: if you have a lot of RAM and are afraid of
swap-based delays, experiment with using no swap. You might get the
more predictable behavior of things either working or pretty much not
working, without a long, drawn out degradation path. It is a simpler
case, and whether it is useful depends upon your needs; I doubt this
is a very common case.
Otherwise, for the moment, 1 GB seems pretty nice.
-kb, the Kent who wants his computer to degrade gradually instead of
suddenly refusing to do things, but that isn't for everybody in all
circumstances.
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