ideal number of swap partitions and sizes (slightly different from other posts)

[Ryan Mesler]

i noticed about a year and a half ago that linux supports multiple swap
drives. since then i've always made a minimum of two swap partitions (using
the ext2 filesystem).

i've noticed somewhat better performance when doing this on low end
machines. but then again, i always had a doubt that it was probably wishful
thinking and that possibly the performance gains i noticed were imaginary.

does anyone actually know for sure if there is indeed a performance gain.

also, take a look at this scenario: 64mb physical ram

one swap drive of 128 mb, or two swap drives of 64.

which would be more beneficial for the system. what if i were to make one
giant swap drive (like 1gb) rather than 4 smaller ones (256mb each). can
anyone enlighten me? i've read many howto's but none have addressed these
questions and unfortunately, most of the linux users in newsgroups...
well... they're less than kind.

thanks!

Ryan Mesler
Technical Support
Internet America

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