swap sizing

[Erich Dollansky]

Hi,

Ken Gunderson wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> On larger systems sporting several gigs of ram, what it the recommended
> swap scheme?  I'm aware of the 2x ram rule of thumb and also that this
> rule is considered "old school" by many.  And of course that you need
> at least as much swap as ram if you want to get a full dump...
> But other than that it seems we pretty much don't want/need to be
> swapping at all on modern machines.  Curious what folks are doing in the
> modern world with larger systems.
> 
It is still the same old problem. How much memory will be needed when 
the maximum number of users are working with the maximum number of 
applications.

The 2x RAM is a good compromise between speed and effort.

You do not need any swap space if you never expect it to be used. But 
keep in mind that your machine might crash in this case if it gets 
loaded to that maximum once.

Swapping has a nice side effect. The machine becomes slower when it 
starts. Users see then that something is wrong and at least stop 
starting new programs.

Erich