swap file too large

[barbary]

I thought the swap file was what the OS needed when it didn't have enought phisical memory. It swaped stuff out to disk.

So I thought that the more physical memory I have the smaller swap file I would need.

Yet every body seems to recomened that the swap file is the size of physical memory + abit more.

Which means that the new servers I'm building with 512Mb or more of ram end up with a swap file of 768Mb on the hard disk after installation. Which eats a huge chunk of the partion for the OS.

Clearly I don't fully understand what the swap file is for. Could somebody give a quick explination???

Would I seriously effect the performance of the machine if I reduced the swap file to say 256Mb??

Please help.

 

[Strafe]

http://arstechnica.com/tweak/nt/pagefile-1.html

 

[Taz4158]

My swapfile is 0 MB.

 

[Zach]

People that say to make your swap file some multiple of physical memory are just trying to fit one style of system's needs to many... Just decide how much memory you think you wil need max, subtract physical, and make that your swap. If you don't like that, only set a minum for swap and don't hard set it, it won't resize if you set a minimum of say 150MB, and max of whatever is left (a gig?), because it will always be under 150.

 

[KidViciou$]

i say you should have physical ram + 12mb.

 

[GopherMobile]

I don't think there is really a reason to have more virtual memory than your RAM, assuming your RAM amount is huge like 512MB as you say. I have 256MB of RAM and 256MB of virtual memory. Windows 2000 likes putting a fair amount of stuff in virtual memory even though RAM is free, so it's worth having a decent sized one. But unless you'll be running tons of big programs(and I mean BIG), you shouldn't need a 768MB of virtual memory.