4 ms·

actually, do you know why they changed this? I thought that a partition was always superior to a file (aside of the usability issues).

• dom0 10y ago
  > I thought that a partition was always superior to a file (aside of the usability issues). Pretty sure you've answered your own question there.
• jakobdabo 10y ago
  File-based swap will always be a bit slower because of the additional file system layer and possible fragmentation of the file.
  • cesarb 10y ago
    On Linux, swap to a file bypasses the filesystem layer when writing and reading, so only fragmentation can be an issue.
    • solnyshok 10y ago
      And then, on SSDs it is a very minor issue
• rwmj 10y ago
  The release notes don't say why, but I'm going to go for flexibility. Swap to a file is slightly slower than swap to a partition, but if you're in a situation where you're swapping, then you've lost the performance battle already.
  • majewsky 10y ago
    I would also guess flexibility. It's certainly a nice property to be able to resize the swap without having to move partitions around or deal with LVM.