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I have a Dell Inspiron 7560 with Windows 10, 7th gen i7, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD + 1 TB 5400 rpm HDD. I want to install Linux on it for Data Mining (high performance).

What would the ideal swap size be? Also, should it be installed on SSD or HDD?

Cristiana Nicolae
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Mihir Rana
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2 Answers2

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The swap is the area to change pages or segments (hard disk and RAM). For this argument, the swap often stay in HDD. The size depends the use of your laptop. I supose is a personal machine and your use is programming, explore Ethernet, edit videos and images... Then you need ~12 GB of swap. But if your computer is a server, you would need 16 GB (2*RAM).

Good luck in your partition!

SpanishEngineer
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  • Yes, it is a personal machine, and I don't intend to store anything on Ubuntu other than the data set that currently working on (will access others from Windows itself). Shouldn't swap be on SSD, since I've read it's a lot faster? – Mihir Rana Dec 03 '16 at 09:17
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If you intend to hibernate the computer, you should have at least the same size as that of RAM in GiB (base 2), so in this case 8.6 GB (base 10).

$ bc
bc 1.06.95
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'. 
scale=2
8*2^30/10^9
8.58

Otherwise I suggest that you make a 2 GB swap partition. It will probably we enough. You will notice when the computer starts swapping, because it will be slow, and then you can close some application program or some tab in your web browser.

If the data mining needs a lot of memory, I think it will be too slow, if extensive swapping is necessary, and you should get more RAM.

sudodus
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  • If buying an extra RAM is not an option, would placing swap on SSD be a viable option? Or on HDD. I do need a significant amount of memory for data mining. – Mihir Rana Dec 03 '16 at 09:20
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    A swap partition on SSD will be slower than RAM but much faster than on HDD. But it will cause wear (maybe even excessive wear that will destroy the SSD). So it might cost more than getting more RAM. An alternative might be to use a swap file (not a partition), and after a while remove the swap file, trim the SSD (let the system rearrange the connection to the memory cells to level out wear) and re-create the swap file. – sudodus Dec 03 '16 at 09:40
  • Okay, I think I'll go with HDD. Thanks. :) Just on a side note, what is the average lifespan of an SSD under normal use? Should I be worried about making too many reads/writes to it? – Mihir Rana Dec 03 '16 at 10:15
  • I used an SSD for at least two years as the system drive (with the root partition of my main computer). I used the mount option noatime, and I had journaling turned on. This drive is still healthy, but I use a bigger drive now for that purpose. I have other SSDs too, and all of them work without problems. But all drives can fail without any warning. 'Tough guys never backup their data. They do the work twice instead'. – sudodus Dec 03 '16 at 10:43