Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 10:21:19 -0600 (CST) From: Mark Tinguely <tinguely@plains.NoDak.edu> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org Subject: Re: swap space... Message-ID: <199911031621.KAA03211@plains.NoDak.edu>
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> So TOO much swap space can be a bad thing? I just saw a comment saying
> too much space will allow the OS to swap everything to disk and reduce
> performance.
Needing "too much" swap backstore space is an indication that you do not
have enough RAM. Backstore is not used unless there is no more free RAM
and the page that is being freed from RAM is dirty. The amount of swap
backstore space is really a measurement of application memory use versus
physical RAM in the machine.
Let us say that we are in a situation that required a lot ("a lot" and
"too much" are again measured relative to the amount of RAM in the machine)
and you did not provide that swap the VM system will start killing processes.
The question you need to ask yourself, which would I rather the system do
in this situation, thrash when other previously backstored pages are needed
by the applications or have some programs automatically killed. Both of these
indication need for more RAM, the philosophy of recovery until more RAM is
placed in the system is the issue.
--mark tinguely.
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