Grant wrote:
I think the idea is never use swap if possible, but in a case where
you don't have swap space or run out of swap space I think it's still
possible to lose data.
Isn't swap just an extension of system memory? Isn't adding 4GB of
memory just as effective at preventing out-of-memory as dedicating 4GB
of HD space to swap? I can understand enabling swap on a laptop or
other system with constrained memory capacity, but doesn't it make
sense to disable swap and add memory on a 24GB server?
Is swap basically a way to save money on RAM?
- Grant
I'm just a desktop user and I'm not going to claim I know it all
either. My thinking, I have two rigs here, one x86 with 2Gbs of ram and
one AMD_64 with 4GBs of ram. I used to have 1Gb of ram on the older x86
rig. When I started using swap on a regular basis, I bought some more
ram. Keep in mind, it only had 512Mbs when I first built it which was
about 8 years ago. My new rig, I plan to max out at 16Gbs and just buy
the sticks as I can afford them. Then put portage's work directory on
tmpfs or something. That should speed up a few things.
Since swap is a lot slower, you don't want to use much swap all the
time. Using swap on occasion when emerging OOo or something that is
similarly huge then that may be OK. When you login or get your server
running and with little activity you are using swap, you need to think
about adding some memory.
I have always tried to view swap as something that can be used at times
when needed or as a failsafe to a system running out of ram and crashing
or something nasty. It's not something I want my system to use all the
time and becomes a performance issue.
That's my thinking. I'm sure it is worth a grain of salt to someone. ;-)
Dale
:-) :-)
