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swap? memory and ssd

tw3ak
tw3ak Posts: 37
in Storage

ok not sure if this is the correct heading or not

here goes,

I have a laptop with 6 gigs of ram and 128 gig ssd with 500 gig second drive.

I'm planning on installing linux and windows on it.. have just installed the ssd. with such a large amount of ram and fast drive why do I need swap space?

Comments

  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    Swap space is used as a backup memory location for stale files or when you exceed your RAM capacity, just as the paging file is used in windows. If the memory is completely filled then the system will crash, even though you have a high amount of RAM a memory handling error in an application may fill your RAM and cause a crash if swap is not enabled. If you have swap you will notice the system slowing prior to crash and give you warning to find and stop the problem app, this issue is very rare, but it is a good precaution.

    Some distros will work without allocating swap space, but with your large amount of available space it would not hurt to allocate a small 1G swap partition.
  • saqman2060
    saqman2060 Posts: 777
    To add to what mfillpot has stated, you can't install linux without a swap partition.

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