[talk] Does swap still matter?

[James E Keenan]

On 3/16/22 11:03, George Rosamond wrote:
> This has been an on and off debate I've had with myself and others, and 
> wanted some input from others. Input from live experiences is great, 
> input from low-level devs is even better.
> 
> When RAM never seemed adequate for a system in the past, the utility of 
> swap was obvious. You would see the spikes on top(1) when swap was hit.

My laptop is now 8 years old, so I'm still living in the world where 
swap is hit.

> 
> swap = 2 x RAM, blah blah.
> 
> Today, when those 64G or more of RAM are the norm for bare-metal boxes, 
> and it's overkill in many contexts, is swap still necessary?
> 
> Do certain applications/OS functions still use swap as opposed to RAM 
> for some reason? I mean, swap is normally encrypted by default, so there 
> is a justifiable reason to use swap over RAM.
> 

I'm so low-level that I never knew that!