From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Dec 11 11:59:22 1995 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id LAA21075 for questions-outgoing; Mon, 11 Dec 1995 11:59:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from main.statsci.com (main.statsci.com [198.145.127.110]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA21063 for ; Mon, 11 Dec 1995 11:59:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from block.statsci.com by main.statsci.com with smtp (Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0tPENH-000r3sC; Mon, 11 Dec 95 11:58 PST Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by block.statsci.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA00636; Mon, 11 Dec 1995 11:58:59 -0800 Message-Id: <199512111958.LAA00636@block.statsci.com> To: Carey Nairn cc: Roland Jay Roberts , questions@freebsd.org, blair@strech.cyber-naut.com Subject: Re: Too much swap????? In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 11 Dec 1995 09:41:08 +1100." Reply-to: scott@statsci.com Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 11:58:58 -0800 From: Scott Blachowicz Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk Carey Nairn wrote: > Probably better if the swap partition is > 2*RAM... I have 16MB RAM and > 32 MB swap and keep running out. The 32MB swap partition is a hangover > from when I had 8MB RAM... one day I'll have to bite the bullet and > increase my swap space. I keep hearing that "2*RAM" guideline, but the problem is that your swap space requirement isn't [directly] related to the amount of RAM in your system. It is related to how much stuff you want to run simultaneously and how much memory all you stuff needs to run. You might be able to come up with some guideline that says something along the lines of "your system performance will become 'unacceptable' if your swap space is less than N times the amount of RAM". But 'unacceptable' is subjective and it still depends on what you are running. If you run 4Mb of stuff on a system with 16Mb of RAM, it doesn't matter how much swap space you have. Scott Blachowicz Ph: 206/283-8802x240 StatSci, a div of MathSoft, Inc. 1700 Westlake Ave N #500 scott@statsci.com Seattle, WA USA 98109 Scott.Blachowicz@seaslug.org