swap partitions vs files
Rahul Dhesi
dhesi at sun505.UUCP
Sat Sep 16 10:45:41 AEST 1989
This question is probably specific to SunOS 4.x, unless 4.3BSD-tahoe
has this feature too.
SunOS 4.x allows you to specify not only a disk partition for swapping,
but also a file created with mkfile(8).
If I were doing it, I would have the kernel map the blocks in the file
to a range of physical blocks on disk just once, and then do all
swapping directly to physical blocks on disk. This would make swapping
to a file as efficient as swapping to a partition. (My concern is
purely with disks local to a Sun workstation, not with swapping over a
network.)
On the other hand, if swapping to a file involves some run-time
mapping, it will be slower than using a swap partition.
The Sun manuals are silent on the issue of performance.
Question: Are the two equally efficient, or is swapping to a file less
efficient?
Please post or email your response as you consider appropriate.
--
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi%cirrusl at oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com>
UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi
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