[Gllug] To partition or not to partition

[Philip Hands]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:58:20 +0100, John Edwards <john at cornerstonelinux.co.uk> wrote:
> I've a few servers that run Java programs that allocate large chunks
> of RAM (100s MB) that do not get used often and so tend to stay mostly
> in swap while the real RAM is used for more important things.
> 
> In the past I've tended to allocate old fashioned swap partitions
> (one on each disk) to handle this. With LVM on RAID1 I would end up
> using twice the space needed because of the mirroring, as well as
> extra disk writes.

The main benefit is that the system should continue running despite a
lost disk.  What you lose in write speed might well be made up for in
read speed, given that you've got two disks to choose from, which might
improve the seek time.

You might be better off looking at ramzswap (aka compcache) which would
get all the drivel that Java produces and compress it such that it might
never need to hit the disk in the first place.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
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