How much swap space should you allocate for e.g. 16GB RAM?
Every reference I've read suggests there's no need for swap space once you have more than ~2GB of RAM, but I find that extremely hard to believe.
Every reference I've read suggests there's no need for swap space once you have more than ~2GB of RAM, but I find that extremely hard to believe.
When somebody asks this question, he always thinks this way:
- I have a system "A" with x GB of ram, with y GB of swap. - I have a system "B" with x+y GB of ram, and no swap, because it has all the virtual memory A is using.
well, the problem is that one should not compare system B with system A, he should compare system B with system C:
- I have a system "C", with x+y GB of ram, and z of swap.
system C will perform potentially better than B.
The generic explanation is that the kernel may decide that it's better to swap out some data, and use the space for caching purposes. This is a concept, that within limits, it's not related to the amount of RAM.