What is Swap Memory in Linux?

Swap is a space on a disk that is used when the amount of physical RAM memory is full. When a Linux system runs out of RAM, inactive pages are moved from the RAM to the swap space. Swap space can take the form of either a dedicated swap partition or a swap file.

1. Whats is swap memory?
2. What happens when swap memory is full?
3. Why is swap memory used?
4. How does swap memory work?

Whats is swap memory?

Memory swapping is a computer technology that enables an operating system to provide more memory to a running application or process than is available in physical random access memory (RAM). ... Memory swapping is among the multiple techniques for memory management in modern systems.

What happens when swap memory is full?

3 Answers. Swap basically serves two roles - firstly to move out less used 'pages' out of memory into storage so memory can be used more efficiently. ... If your disks arn't fast enough to keep up, then your system might end up thrashing, and you'd experience slowdowns as data is swapped in and out of memory.

Why is swap memory used?

Swap is used to give processes room, even when the physical RAM of the system is already used up. In a normal system configuration, when a system faces memory pressure, swap is used, and later when the memory pressure disappears and the system returns to normal operation, swap is no longer used.

How does swap memory work?

Swap space is used when your operating system decides that it needs physical memory for active processes and the amount of available (unused) physical memory is insufficient. When this happens, inactive pages from the physical memory are then moved into the swap space, freeing up that physical memory for other uses.