4 ms·
So, the argument the article makes is: 1. Swap is slow 2. If using swap, your system starts to thrash 3. If thrashing, you can't close programs to free memor
by Dayshine 10y ago
So, the argument the article makes is:
1. Swap is slow
2. If using swap, your system starts to thrash
3. If thrashing, you can't close programs to free memory
4. If you can't close programs, you have to wait until the task is killed by the OS
5. If you have no swap (or very little), you don't have to wait.
Except with an SSD, swap isn't slow enough to cause that issue.
So really this article only seems to apply to servers, not desktops.
- mitchty 10y agoNot entirely true, I've had swap thrashing with ssd's on desktops too. Though it tends to mean you're boned, or going to be waiting a while while all i/o is dedicated to swapping for minutes at a time.
- jandrese 10y agoIt seems like the OS developer's opinion these days is that RAM is cheap, don't swap. In the old days people cared a lot about swap performance because RAM was so tight that you were virtually guaranteed to swap at some point. These days you get 16GB sticks in boxes of Crackerjacks so why would you ever swap? Of course the trend of making notebooks thinner by ditching the SODIMM slots and soldering insufficient amounts of memory to the mobo may reverse this.