Swap File: Experiences

[scoutme]

Do anyone actually use a swapfile with pdaxrom with (noticeably) good results? I assume we are speaking about external cards swap files, cause our internal flash is too precious....

[Zumi]

Do anyone actually use a swapfile with pdaxrom with (noticeably) good results? I assume we are speaking about external cards swap files, cause our internal flash is too precious....

Well, I'm usually using 1 or 2 16MB swapfile. I can't say much about how fast it is. I need it most of the time. It saves my big apps, like gimp, a Debian octave and compilations from getting killed by the out of memory killer. When I run apps that fits in the memory, the Z doesn't use swapfile, and when I'm running the big ones it always uses, so I can't tell you exactly how fast it is...

But I usually never use more then 32MB swap. It's a C700, so maybe others with C760s and C860s (twice as much RAM) don't really need a swap.

Zumi

[offthefront]

I have a 64M swapfile on my SD card which is formatted ext3. My results are good. I have a C700 and usually have a few apps up at the same time. firefox, kopi, xmms, a few shells and it works just as you would expect.

[scoutme]

...I'm going to try a swap partition on my sd card soon. Firefox really needs large memory, especially if used with other big apps. I think such a swap, on my 860, could be a sort of parachute, to avoid out of mem killings - it's up to the user to mantain a low swap usage.

[jamesannan]

I used to use a swap, and my SD card died very quickly. Don't know for sure that the two points are related, of course. I got a new SD card (same type) and have not used a swap file. Apart from having to close down apps a bit more, I don't miss it. The machine seems clearly faster now I am nott using the swap file - but I could be kidding myself.

James

[donquixote]

I used to use a swap, and my SD card died very quickly.

Did you get a replacement under warranty? My SD card has a five-year warranty

Also, someone here noted that they only use 32MB max swaps. Why? What about the Linux rule-of-thumb that the swap should be twice the size as one's RAM?

dq

[philo]

if one of you could, please write up some quick instructions on how to set up the swap on the sd card.

thanks.

philo

[donquixote]

I still haven't heard a formal conclusion whether to use SD or CF for swap, i.e. which is faster/slower and better to use etc.

dq

[jamesannan]

I used to use a swap, and my SD card died very quickly.

Did you get a replacement under warranty?

Yes, Sandisk USA gave me the runaround for a couple of months (f#$%ing awful customer service via their webite) before at last I got an email from a real human at Sandisk Japan and they replaced it by return of post (I bought it from ebay originally, but new in original packaging). New one has been perfectly behaved so far, just as these things usually are.

The Japanese really are very good at customer service!

James