[talk] Does swap still matter?

[George Rosamond]

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.

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 know encrypted RAM is a (small) part of the universe today, including 
with the Ryzen pro series.

Looking forward to being enlightened.

g