Maximum Swapsize

Mark Andrews Mark_Andrews at isc.org
Tue Apr 11 01:58:19 UTC 2006


> Daniel O'Connor wrote:
> 
> > The old "swap size = 2x RAM" rule is no longer applicable unless you have a
>  
> > very special application.
> 
> This "rule" always seemed counterintuitive to me anyway.
> 
> When you have very limited physical RAM you need a lot of swap space. 
> When you have more than enough RAM you don't need any swap space at all. 
> For a given set of applications, as RAM increases you need less swap 
> space, not more. And vice versa.

	The rule was "a minimum of 2 time memory".  This allowed to be
	able to swap between two processes consuming all of real memory.
	It dates backs to PDP 11 memory management models.
 
	Mark
--
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark_Andrews at isc.org


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