Swap Partion with 4Gb Ram? Solved

[weg]

Hi all,
with some new computers having 4 GB ram is a swap partition still necessary.If so does the rule of roughly double the ram still apply. If double the ram is unnecessary, how much then should be installed,   thanks   weg

[Bald Brick]

Hi all,
with some new computers having 4 GB ram is a swap partition still necessary.

Most of the time it isn't. But it's a safety net.

If so does the rule of roughly double the ram still apply.

Quite certainly not -- unless you use your computer in strange and unusual ways.

If double the ram is unnecessary, how much then should be installed,   thanks   weg

I don't know. I have 8 GB of RAM, but with the old kernels only 42% of it was actually accessible to programs -- so in practical terms I've run with 4 GB's of RAM up until now. I also have a 4 GB swap partition -- and in ten months I've seen (or heard) no swapping. If I were to set up a new system today, I'd be content with 2 GB.

[T6]

2 to 4 are more than enough and if you monitor that partition you will see that it is not used with all that ram

i have 1280mbs and haven't seen activity on it on many months, when i had 512 mbs the swap was merely used up to 200 mbs or less, usually it used 70, 30 or less

as blackbird says is a safety net and under normal circumstances can be seen as a waste of hard disk space

[Old-Polack]

Hi all,
with some new computers having 4 GB ram is a swap partition still necessary.If so does the rule of roughly double the ram still apply. If double the ram is unnecessary, how much then should be installed,   thanks   weg

If you have a laptop, and intend to use hibernate, your swap must be large enough to hold everything present already in swap as well as everything in RAM at the time the machine goes into hibernation, hence the 2xRAM rule. For a desktop that never sees hibernation, it's probably mostly a waste of space, and the size really depends on how you use the computer. If you do a lot of video work, transcoding more than one file at a time, swap usage can be rather high, in relationship to RAM, so swap at least equal to RAM would not be out of line. If you mostly spend your time on the web, and typing documents and reports, you may not need swap at all.

[critter]

O-P
That is the most accurate assessment of modern swap requirements i have seen and probably just enough to answer a newbies questions.

Perhaps you should put this in the wiki or sticky it somewhere in the forum

[Bald Brick]

you should put this in the wiki or sticky it somewhere in the forum

I wholeheartedly agree. I for one never considered hibernation.

[Old-Polack]

Here you go.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,69910.msg573094.html#msg573094

[weg]

Thanks to all who replied to my question.I am suitably edified,    weg