DevilsPGD wrote
Because its used more than the rest of the drive for writes, in most
real world situations.
As has already been noted, modern SSDs have effectively unlimited write
lifetime, unless you are doing something truly exceptional. So please
stop worrying about writing to flash drives.
Wrong, it makes a lot more sense to have more physical system ram
instead so the page file doesnt get used at all. MUCH cheaper and
much faster too.
Physical ram is faster - no doubts there.
But cheaper? That's only true if you are talking about a GB or 2. But
since most people are running 32-bit OS's, upgrading beyond about 3.5 GB
means installing a whole new 64-bit OS - buying an SSD is going to be a
lot cheaper if you value your time. And once you already have 6 GB or 8
GB, a memory upgrade probably means buying a full new set of DIMMs for a
lot more than an SSD.
So it makes a lot more sense to not have a low memory situation
instead.
If you are living in a Windows world, that's the case - swap is only
used if the OS runs out of real memory. But with Linux, swap space is
used if the real memory can be used for other purposes. Thus
little-used programs may be moved from memory to swap to free up space
for more disk cache. And it can be particularly useful for using tmpfs
for temporary directories - the temporary files will then be in ram, and
moved into swap if ram space is getting low.
Enough system ram so the page file doesnt get used will speed it up
MUCH more for a lot less money.
Its always true unless it isnt possible to add more system ram for
some reason.
I find cost, memory slots, and 32-bit OS limitations to be pretty good
reasons. Roughly 3.5 GB is the limit for 32-bit OS (depending on the
graphics card memory space), and 8 or 12 GB is the practical and
economic limit for 64-bit OS unless you are talking about serious
workstations or servers.
You hardly ever are in that situation and it makes a lot more sense
to replace the hardware so it doesnt have that situation than to go
for an expensive SSD for the page file anyway, because enough system
ram so the page file doesnt get used costs a lot less even if the
motherboard has to be changed to allow that.
Changing motherboard is seldom going to be cheaper, unless you happen to
have a particularly limited motherboard and there's a simple upgrade
path while keeping other components the same. In most cases, changing
motherboards is a time-consuming and risky process, while adding an SSD
is generally quick, simple, and low risk.
And if you already have 4 GB installed and a 32-bit OS, getting more
memory is very costly.
Then the speed isnt a problem, so there is no point in an expensive
SSD for just the page file.
You wouldn't use an SSD /just/ for swap. Even if you don't want to go
through the process of moving the OS or program directories over to the
SSD, you can easily move things like temporary directories and browser
caches to speed things up (these are read and written more than swap in
most cases). Data files are also typically painless to move, and may
benefit from the extra speed.
Wrong, its either a completely ****ed kludge if the page file is used
a lot or a complete waste of money if its hardly ever used.
You're a windows man to the core, aren't you? Historically, swap was -
as you say - a kludge when it was added to windows. For other systems,
swap has always been seen as a layer in the hierarchical memory system
and it is still useful today.
It is true that swap is not as relevant now (especially with windows) on
most systems as it used to be - the key reason being that the speed
difference between ram and disk has increased dramatically making swap
even slower (relatively speaking).
