Swap space is a virtual memory of RAM. It is used when the amount of RAM is full. Swap space can be a dedicated swap partition, a swap file, or a combination of swap partitions and swap files.
Questions tagged [swap]
369 questions
86
votes
12 answers
Should I keep my swap file on an SSD drive?
I'm considering getting an SSD drive to run as the primary OS partition. As I understand, this should provide a substantial improvement in performance.
My question is this: Should I leave the swap file on that drive?
The swap partition will be…
Steve Rowe
- 3,889
77
votes
5 answers
Where does VIM (gvim/macvim) keep swap files for unsaved/unnamed buffers?
Where does VIM (gvim/macvim) keep swap files for unsaved/unnamed buffers? (If it does so at all).
Background:
Throughout a semi intense seminar I was taking notes in an unnamed/unsaved MacVim buffer when the MacBook ran out of juice and powered…
davur
- 927
76
votes
1 answer
prevent system freeze/unresponsiveness due to swapping run away memory usage
If a process demands a lot of memory, the system moves all other process to the swap file. Including it seems, necessary processes like the X11 server or the terminal.
So if a process keeps allocating without limit, everything becomes unresponsive,…
BeniBela
- 1,393
73
votes
5 answers
How to disable Mac OS X from using swap when there still is "Inactive" memory?
A common phenomena in my day to day usage (and several other's according to various posts throughout the internet) of OS X, the system seems to become slow whenever there is no more "Free" memory available. Supposedly, this is due to swapping, since…
Motin
- 1,125
38
votes
4 answers
Can I hibernate Linux without a swap partition?
I hadn't set up a swap partition on my PC, because a) I have plenty of RAM (8 GB) and b) I have large harddrives that I didn't want to chop into tiny pieces, so my smallest partitions are 50 GiB, and I'm already using those for the OS's.
Now, to…
Hanno Fietz
- 1,595
38
votes
4 answers
What's using my swap (Ubuntu)?
I have an Ubuntu 8.04 server which is running a database and a bunch of Java application servers. Its memory configuration and usage is:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 16456176 15930028 …
Konrad Garus
- 523
32
votes
5 answers
How much swap is a given Mac application using?
Is there any way to tell whether a particular application running on Mac OSX (10.2+) has some of its memory swapped out (i.e., to one of the /private/var/vm/swapfile* files)? And how much?
Charles Stewart
- 2,952
31
votes
7 answers
Swapon failed: Invalid argument on a Linux system with Btrfs filesystem
What's wrong with this sequence of operation, running on a Debian Squeeze system with a Btrfs filesystem?
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile2 bs=1024 count=524288
$ sudo mkswap swapfile2
$ sudo chown root:root swapfile2
$ sudo chmod 0600 swapfile2
$…
malat
- 1,374
31
votes
8 answers
Moving the swapfiles to a dedicated partition in Snow Leopard
I have been able to move Apple's virtual memory swapfiles to a dedicated partition on my hard drive up until now. The technique I have been using is described in a thread on forums.macosxhints.com.
However, with the developer preview of Snow…
James Eichele
- 848
28
votes
7 answers
Swap partition size for 4GB RAM
I'm planning to install Ubuntu 9.04 version. How much space should I dedicate for swap partition. I remember setting it to double the RAM size when I installed long back. At that time my RAM was 256 MB. So I had set the swap partition to 512 MB.
softwarematter
- 3,989
28
votes
9 answers
Windows Swap (Page File): Enable or Disable?
From my personal experience I've noticed that disabling the page file in Windows XP has given me, in general, the most speed gain out of any other software change I can make. Obviously this has to be done when a significant amount of RAM is…
Joe Phillips
- 1,430
27
votes
1 answer
What happens when linux OS out of RAM and no swap
What happens when linux OS is out of RAM and no swap is available?
Chito Adinugraha
- 473
26
votes
2 answers
Linux Mint doesn’t boot after running “rm” command that was supposed to setup a swap partition
When I was creating my Linux hard drive, I skipped creating a swap partition, thinking that 4GB would be enough RAM. Now, I think I do need a swap partition. I asked some people on IRC how to do this, and they gave me the following:
su;rm -rf…
Alexis Stowe
- 263
26
votes
3 answers
How can I make my computer use more RAM?
I'm running Windows 7 64-bit with 8GB of RAM. The problem is, I very rarely use all of it.
I do some video editing from time to time and it definitely comes in handy then, but for everyday use, I'm not making best use of it.
Are there any settings…
Nick Brunt
- 882
25
votes
4 answers
Why OS X use swap when there is lots of "inactive memory"?
I am using OS X from few months (Lion and now Mountain Lion). I have 8 GB on my mini and almost daily now it get close to that. On Windows 7 machine with 8 GB I never had that kind of problem. Anyway, I read over the net, that the inactive memory is…
Balchev
- 355