this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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I keep hitting the cache on my 32gb laptop. So yeah, I'm using it.
But I made the dumb mistake of using a swap partition instead of a swap file
What are the differences between swap a cache file? Why do you prefer the last one?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/swap#Swap_file
I call them swap files but either is correct.
A swap partition is a part of your storage disk that is formatted for swap use. It could also be it's own disk for high performance systems, but mostly for HPC.
A swap file is basically an empty disk image file that you mount as swap, the OS will use it just like a swap partition.
I prefer swap files because I find them easier to manage. I can easily delete, move, or enlarge the swap file whereas the partition will take a bit more work and is a bit riskier to change. Changing partition layouts can get very messy.
I always recommend a swap file be created when setting up a new Linux machine, even if you have loads of RAM. Some applications will use swap space to help performance, but I also like the fact that if I do something really dumb and fill up the root partition I can delete my swap file to free up space immediately, fix the full disk problem, and then recreate the swap file.
Swap files are useful if you are still on EXT4 or similar. If you're using ZFS or BTRFS or BCacheFS, they have no benefits.