Swap space question
Thierry Sayegh De Bellis
linux at glossolalie.org
Sat Sep 30 14:07:37 UTC 2006
Hi Nicolas,
> If you go higher and actually
> intend to use all of this swap space, you will likely suffer serious
> performance problems because the system will spend all of its time
> swapping (a condition known as thrashing). "
A system will traditionally use swap space when it runs out of memory
for the task it's running. Think production environment with very heavy
load like database dealing with a LOT of requests etc.
A good tip taken from the RHEL 4 installation manual
(http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/x8664-multi-install-guide/s1-diskpartitioning.html#S2-DISKPARTRECOMMEND)
is "If your partitioning scheme requires a swap partition that is larger
than 2 GB, you should create an additional swap partition. For example,
if you need 4 GB of swap, you should create two 2 GB swap partitions. If
you have 4 GB of RAM, you should create three 2 GB swap partitions." but
bear in mind we're talking production server and not workstation.
>
> i can't understand why if create a really big swap partition i will have
> a performance decrease????It seems to me
> that in the worst case scenario, i will be throwing disk space [because
> the system will never use the swap partition if it doesn't need
> it......why this would have a negative impact on the system......]
This is because you see it from the user point of view...
A home user with recent hardware will usually not suffer or notice load
on his/her machine. Go with the default from the installer.
> thanks in advance,
>
> Nicolas Ang
>
Hope this helps
Thierry
--
(o< Thierry Sayegh de Bellis
//\ RHCE
V_/_ UK
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