RAM upgrade.

John Seth johnseth at phoenixwing.com
Wed Jun 11 00:45:55 EDT 2003


It's a general rule to make swap space double the amount of RAM.  It's 
what I was taught during various training sessions, and told by many 
admin's I've talked to.  I follow what Mark mentioned as my own general 
rules as well, <256 = RAM*2, >256 = RAM, unless it's a system that will 
use memory intensively, in which case I adjust swap accordingly.  RedHat 
most likely set it as default to double swap just to appease those who 
strictly adhere to the guidelines.

  - Tony

Cyber Source wrote:
> If that were true, then why does the install routine just double the 
> size of the ram for the size of the swap partition? always. I mean I 
> have had systems with 500mb ram and the install routine wants to make a 
> swap partition of 1gb. This doesn't sound right to me either, just 
> noting what I've seen
 >
> On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 22:32, green_man wrote:
> 
>>/Mark Musone wrote, On 6/10/03 9:38 PM:
>>
>>> You can actually make a swap file and use that as additional swap 
>>> space, thereby eliminating the need for adding another partition..
>>>
>>> However if you added more memory, you really dont need additional 
>>> swap space (arguably you need less swap space)
>>>
>>> You didnt mention how much swap space you had..my rule normally is:
>>>
>>> < 128M memory, swap space = 2*memory size
>>>
>>>> 256M, swap space = memory size
>>>
>>> -Mark
>>>
>>
>>
>>I was thinking the same thing.
>>If you added more RAM to decrease disk thrashing, then increasing the 
>>swap partition just makes more room to thrash around in.
>>Your RAM capacity should be detected by the BIOS during POST.
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-nflug at nflug.org [//mailto:owner-nflug at nflug.org] On Behalf 
>>> Of Cyber Source
>>> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 9:27 PM
>>> To: nflug at nflug.org
>>> Subject: Re: RAM upgrade.
>>>
>>> It won't do it automatically and you will have to repartition the hard 
>>> drive to make a larger partition for it to use, you will then need to 
>>> run mkswapon command. You could, if you have access to them ( i have 
>>> some here in the shop) use a small say 500mb disk drive and use it 
>>> entirely for the swap partition ( you will need to make the change in 
>>> your /etc/fstab file, as well as running the mkswapon command after
>>> On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 20:44, David Mangani wrote:
>>>
>>>Hi all,
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> I recently upgraded the ram in my desktop from 128MB to 256MB ( much less 
>>>
>>>disk thrashing ). I am Running RH9 and was simply wondering, does RH pick up 
>>>
>>>this change and adjust the swap size or do I need to do that manually 
>>>
>>>somehow.
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>TIA
>>>
>>>Dave
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Cyber Source <peter at thecybersource.com <mailto:peter at thecybersource.com>>
>>>
>>> 
>>>/
>>
> -- 
> Cyber Source <peter at thecybersource.com <mailto:peter at thecybersource.com>>
> 
> 




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