swap file vs. swap partition

verndog · 05-08-2008, 01:40 AM

I ran across the idea of making a swap file in place of a swap partition.
Anyone have experience using swap file? Any pros or cons for either?

Here is some links on the subject:
SwapFile1

SwapFile2

Simon Bridge · 05-08-2008, 01:49 AM

Been asked before:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...s-file-461020/

No subjective difference. If you have two drives, you can get a performance increase by putting your swap partition on a different drive to root. In general, partitions are faster than files. However, 21st century computers are so fast anyway...

(if you care so much about speed - do without swap altogether and run at least 1024MiB RAM.)

UndiFineD · 05-08-2008, 02:47 AM

And what about suspend to disk ?

It uses the swap to store all memory contents.

If you need swap, sure place it at the lowest possible sectors and on a separate harddisk.

if you just use it for suspend and minor swap actions a swap file somewhere on your disk might be fine.

what is the future for swap with solid-state disks ?

mostly suspend actions, memory is relatively cheap.
so new systems should have few reasons to swap.

Simon Bridge · 05-08-2008, 04:54 AM

Quote:

And what about suspend to disk ?

Yep - if you care more about hibernate than speed, you want swap. If you want both - enable swap = RAM size and set swappiness to zero.

Quote:

If you need swap, sure place it at the lowest possible sectors and on a separate harddisk.

After the first swap - it won't be noticable. Single-disk setups often put swap in it's own extended partition.

There is usually quite a lot of debate about how best to use swap. Truth is, on modern systems the fine tuning is not noticeable without special equipment.

verndog · 05-09-2008, 01:12 AM

The reason I even brought this subject up was so that I could have only one partition instead of several that Linux likes to have. Windows typically has only one partition and cloning or imaging a system is easy. I wanted to do the same. I have learned through my ignorance that I don't need to back up the swap partition , and that I can easily recreate it.

I know a lot of thinking is that one should have '/home' as a separate partition, but if I image regularly what's the difference?

unSpawn · 05-09-2008, 05:06 AM

While some distributions or users may automagically go for a "/" plus swap layout there's good reasons for having multiple partitions. Most of them are discussed in partitioning threads and we've got quite a few for you to read.