A question about swap

[Norman Diamond]

In article <1991Jun14.184609.21178 at mlb.semi.harris.com> dcb at dave.mis.semi.harris.com writes:
>On one of our 5500s, we have configured over 500M of swap space. Someone
>recommended using the 'a' and 'b' partitions over five drives, with the
>a/b partitions combined into a larger 'a' partition.

I believe that if you swap onto your 'a' partition, then you overwrite the
partition information and corrupt the entire disk.  It might be possible to
make a really tiny 'a' partition and larger 'b' partition while leaving the
rest of the disk alone; I haven't tried it.

I believe that if you swap onto a disk's 'c' partition (an entire disk),
then you are usually safe, but if a random memory that happens to look like
a partition table happens to get swapped out onto the lucky block, and then
you reboot, you have a corrupted disk.

Warning:  this post is a combination of vague recollections and logical
thinking, both of which are risky and should not be depended upon when using
a derivative of the Unix operating system.  Do your own reading and/or obtain
advice from an expert on the topic before relying on it.

Incidentally to dcb, your "from" address of dcb at dave.enet.dec.com seems
somewhat suspect.  You'll have to hack your news software a bit more.
--
Norman Diamond       diamond at tkov50.enet.dec.com
If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.
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