From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Feb 4 22:29:07 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2FCF716A40A; Sun, 4 Feb 2007 22:29:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E4EC213C4AA; Sun, 4 Feb 2007 22:29:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from phobos.samsco.home (phobos.samsco.home [192.168.254.11]) (authenticated bits=0) by pooker.samsco.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id l14MT01e030341; Sun, 4 Feb 2007 15:29:06 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Message-ID: <45C65E1F.2020109@samsco.org> Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:28:47 -0700 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2pre) Gecko/20070111 SeaMonkey/1.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Aloha Guy References: <393982.95591.qm@web53614.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <393982.95591.qm@web53614.mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH authentication, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]); Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:29:06 -0700 (MST) X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=3.8 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=failed version=3.1.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.1 (2006-03-10) on pooker.samsco.org Cc: questions@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: swap file vs swap partition X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 22:29:07 -0000 Aloha Guy wrote: > Thanks for the input. You do have good points. The only issue with > swap partitions is that it seems like you need to increase it everytime > you increase the physical memory. Is there a swap partition size limit > that pretty much will handle anything and setting a number larger than > that will really not offer anything? > > John Processors and memory have vastly outpaced the speed of disks; any amount of swapping is going to be percieved as being very slow and something that should be avoided. Since RAM is also very cheap now, most people just load enough RAM into their system to handle their load, and then configure enough swap to hold a crashdump of that RAM. You always want swap so that you can handle unexpected spikes in load without crashing, but it's less of an integral piece of normal system operation these days. Scott