[ale] On swap space (was Re: who is eating my drive)

[Jim Kinney]

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 4:05 PM, The Don Lachlan <ale-at-ale.org@
unpopularminds.org> wrote:

> On 05/31/2011 03:37 PM, Pat Regan wrote:
> > On Tue, 31 May 2011 15:18:13 -0400
> > The Don Lachlan<ale-at-ale.org at unpopularminds.org>  wrote:
> >> In a physical system, swap should be a primary partition,
> >> specifically the FIRST partition. Why? Because the first partition is
> >> closest and has fastest access. I forget which distro I marked in the
> >> Do Not Use column because it wouldn't allow me to partition that way
> >> - it would quietly move the swap partition after the boot partition.
> >
> > The extended partition doesn't have to be at the end of the drive.  It
>
> I can think of no reasons you would deliberately put a primary partition
> behind the extended partition.
>
> > I disagree that the using the fastest part of the disk is a good idea
> > for swap.  We shouldn't be using swap very often, if at all.  Giving it
> > prime real estate on the disk seems like a waste to me :)
>
> I think we're working on different systems. Swap costs pennies a GB, RAM
> costs many dollars per GB. We should be using swap because it's
> C-H-E-A-P-E-R.
>

I guess it really depends on how the system is going to be used. Most of the
stuff I run is bordering on or deep into high performance. Swap is _bad_
from my view. RAM disks are good. Screw the cost! More speed!

I used to joke (only half serious) that I want twice as much ram as disk
space. Boot, copy drive to ram and run.

>
> Regular paging between physical RAM and swap space can be expensive to a
> system's performance; I would say that we shouldn't be paging in/out
> often, if at all, but paging out is A Good Thing <tm>.
>
> I would also counter that I have never, EVER, seen anyone deliberately
> use the start of a disk for faster access unless they were using it for
> swap. If you want to put your most I/O intensive partition at the front
> of the disk, that absolutely makes sense - and as soon as I find someone
> who does that, I'll toggle my bit to 1. :)
>
> >> Use as much swap as you think you may need; if you have the spare
> >> disk (disk is cheap), then I would use 1x RAM for swap. More than
> >> that should be unnecessary. As for minimum - 1GB of swap is usually
> >> sufficient.
> >
> > Also, if you want to be able to suspend to disk then make sure you have
> > more swap than physical RAM as well.
>
> D'oh! Yeah, I never suspend to disk so I hadn't considered that. Adjust
> all of my numbers + 1x RAM to include that.
>
> -L
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
- *2011 Noam Chomsky*
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