Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : 4GB RAM...how to setup swap size?

[m00ds]

Hello people, I need some help in setting the swap partition on RedHat 7.1

I have 4GB RAM available but I'm not sure how to set up the swap partition. I mean, do I set up a single 4GB swap partition or is there another way?

Can anyone help me on this? Thanks.

[Mdot]

4gb of swap is enough

[priyadi]

With RedHat 7.1 (kernel version 2.4.x < 2.4.9) you need a swap partition at least twice of RAM size. So you need at least 8 GB of swap *gasp*.

I suggest to upgrade to RedHat 7.3 where this limitation has been lifted. 512 MB of swap will be fine.

[m00ds]

Ok thank you for the information...

[StevenG]

I suggest to upgrade to RedHat 7.3 where this limitation has been lifted. 512 MB of swap will be fine

I see gaming servers pushing 11MBPS and only using a max of 127MB of swap.. 512MB is heaps.

[m00ds]

Someone advised me that for big memory requirements, the max swap size is in 2GB increments. Therefore if I have 4GB RAM that means I'd have to create 2 x 2GB swap partitions. This is the general idea that I got from looking at different servers. I just wanted to find out the corrrect way and whether that is really required.

[StevenG]

In my opinion.. double the RAM is not neccessary at all - 128MB - 512MB is fine.

[reseller]

Swap files don't need to be double the RAM anymore. The only time they needed to be double RAM was when, RAM was small and near non-existant. Unfortunately though, many people seem to still hold onto the belief that swap needs to be double RAM still.

At this stage, 512mb is plenty for swap space. Notice I said at this stage, and not "it is all you need", I don't want to be a Bill Gates and proclaim that 64k is all the memory anyone should ever need (or something like that)

[Studio64]

With 4GB's of physical RAM available.... If you max that out and have to use a swap drive I'd be shocked ...

And by that point I'd probably be your CPU (or your bus) that's the bottleneck not the limitation on RAM.

[priyadi]

Originally posted by reseller
Swap files don't need to be double the RAM anymore. The only time they needed to be double RAM was when, RAM was small and near non-existant. Unfortunately though, many people seem to still hold onto the belief that swap needs to be double RAM still.

Linux has never required the use of swap = 2x RAM until 2.4.0, refer to this thread for more details. However this requirement has been lifted in version 2.4.9 (?) or later version.

[m00ds]

Originally posted by priyadi


Linux has never required the use of swap = 2x RAM until 2.4.0, refer to this thread for more details. However this requirement has been lifted in version 2.4.9 (?) or later version.

I knew it was stated somewhere about the 2xRAM requirement, so thanks for pointing that out priyadi . That's how my server is set up right now 2x2GB swap for 4GB ram.