[paperwork]

- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Server

- HEADLINE: Default swap space doesn't make sense for servers with HUGE ram

- DESCRIPTION: Recently I tried to install ubuntu on a server class machine where it had huge amount of ram and disk storage was spread across many ssd disks. Apparently due to the size of the ram, ubuntu was attempting to set aside so much swap space that it was taking up most of the boot disk! It was very painful to change the default and i would have switched to centos if not for LXD availability. (Note that I am a programmer, not an admin and I was doing this as an experiment)

[majewsky]

I heard an anecdote at $work where they ordered servers with positively huge RAM (in the TiB range) for big-data applications, then wondered why the storage box was filled up within a few days. Turns out some admin remembered advice from a 90s-era system setup manual that recommended to set swap size = 2 * RAM size.

[dustinkirkland]

Yes, indeed. I assure you, I've been fighting this particular battle since 2008 :-)

In any case, I hope you'll be pleased to learn that 17.04 will actually use "swap files" rather than "swap partitions", which are far more easily adjusted after the fact, than swap partitions.