BBS:      TELESC.NET.BR
Assunto:  Re: Adding a hardware swap partition
De:       The Natural Philosopher
Data:     Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:15:10 +0000
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On 13/03/2026 01:26, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
> I was hopeful somebody would respond to my query regarding
> the relative speeds of swapfiles vs swap partitions. If
> they're anywhere close in performance a swapfile seems
> worth trying.

That is an interesting thought.

Google AI sez

"Key Differences and Performance Factors:

-   Performance: A swap partition is technically faster as it writes 
directly to the disk, bypassing the filesystem, but this advantage is 
rarely noticeable in daily use.

-   Flexibility: Swap files are much easier to resize, create, or delete 
without modifying disk partitions, making them the preferred choice for 
most modern setups.

-  Fragmentation: On traditional HDDs, a fragmented swap file can be 
slower, but this is not an issue on SSDs.

-    Hard Drive Placement: On spinning HDDs, a partition placed at the 
start of the drive is slightly faster, but this does not apply to SSDs.

Recommendation:

For the majority of users (especially on SSDs), a swap file is 
recommended for its convenience without any meaningful loss in speed. A 
swap partition is only recommended if you have specific, 
high-performance needs or are using older, heavily fragmented hard drives. "

I think that is an interesting summary, the point being made that speed 
is dominated today by disk access times, not CPU cycles in addressing  a 
file system.
And with the demise of spinning rust, there is no seek delay either, so 
the theoretical advantages of an actual partition in the disks low 
sector area, no longer outweigh the operational simplicity of a swap file.

Like so many other things that grew out of limited RAM and slow spinning 
rust disks, the swap partition is really no longer necessary...


-- 
?People believe certain stories because everyone important tells them, 
and people tell those stories because everyone important believes them. 
Indeed, when a conventional wisdom is at its fullest strength, one?s 
agreement with that conventional wisdom becomes almost a litmus test of 
one?s suitability to be taken seriously.?

Paul Krugman


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