Re: System performance using swap partition vs. swap file

[Rick Stevens <rstevens vitalstream com>]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> Rick,
>    This goes back to the problem that I was having with the kernel that
> ordered the disk controllers differently. If you remember, in one case it
> said HDA and in the other case it said HDE.
>
>    For my data partitions I got around the problem by not mounting devices,
> like /dev/hda7 or /dev/hde7, but instead using an ext2 label, and then
> mounting a label in fstab instead. It works very nicely.
>
>    However, it doesn't work for swap partitions, as far as I know...

Er, no, it won't.  The labels are part of the ext2/3 filesystem, and
swap doesn't have it.

>    My idea was to make a new ext2 partition, label it as /swap_part and then
> mount that in fstab using levels also. The only thing that I'll have on that
> partition will be the swap file, so there shouldn't be any issues WRT the
> file system doing weird things. Any access to that partition I intend to be
> to the swap file.

Ah!  Yes, that would work.  Sneaky and clever, Mark!  An ext2
partition labeled "swap" and split up into multiple swap files.  VERY
nice!

Keep in mind that swap files and partitions can be no larger than 2GB,
so you may need more than one.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens vitalstream com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-         Okay, who put a "stop payment" on my reality check?        -
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