swap file vs. swap partition

[Peter Arremann]

On Saturday 30 July 2005 13:06, Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer wrote:
> menscher at uiuc.edu (Damian Menscher) writes:
> > A swap partition would be faster (think about it -- no filesystem
> > overhead).
>
> Not true anymore. There is no overhead for a swap file compared to a swap
> partition:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/browse_thread/thread/801af09
>eaf08147c/7bbb9d44ece78faf?lnk=st&q=group:*kernel*+swap+file+partition&rnum=
>1#7bbb9d44ece78faf

Was just going to post that link... Yes, there is no performance difference on 
a block by block base between partition and file... but there is still one 
good performance reason to use swap partitions - you can put them in the 
fastest region of the disk. Look at this graph 
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050606/toshiba-05.html#data_transfer_graph 
(just an example, you can usually easily find similar graphs for your drive 
type). 
You see, if you place the swap partition at the end of the disk, you'll get 
like 40% less performance than if it is at the beginning. With a individual 
partition you can control this - with a filesystem (if its larger, i.e. if 
you only make one large / partition) you can't really determine the location 
of your swap file...

Peter.