[ale] On swap space (was Re: who is eating my drive)

[Pat Regan]

On Tue, 31 May 2011 15:18:13 -0400
The Don Lachlan <ale-at-ale.org at unpopularminds.org> wrote:

> In a physical system, swap should be a primary partition,
> specifically the FIRST partition. Why? Because the first partition is
> closest and has fastest access. I forget which distro I marked in the
> Do Not Use column because it wouldn't allow me to partition that way
> - it would quietly move the swap partition after the boot partition.
> 

The extended partition doesn't have to be at the end of the drive.  It
can be in the middle, the end, or the entire disk.  I can't remember
the last time I've needed to use an extended partition though.  If I
need more than 4 partitions then I will be using LVM anyway...

I disagree that the using the fastest part of the disk is a good idea
for swap.  We shouldn't be using swap very often, if at all.  Giving it
prime real estate on the disk seems like a waste to me :)
 
> Use as much swap as you think you may need; if you have the spare
> disk (disk is cheap), then I would use 1x RAM for swap. More than
> that should be unnecessary. As for minimum - 1GB of swap is usually
> sufficient.

Also, if you want to be able to suspend to disk then make sure you have
more swap than physical RAM as well.

Pat