<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" type="topic" style="task" id="mem-swap" xml:lang="ro">

  <info>

    <revision pkgversion="3.11" date="2014-01-28" status="final"/>

    <link type="guide" xref="index#memory" group="memory"/>

    <include xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="legal.xml"/>

    <credit type="author copyright">

      <name>Phil Bull</name>

      <email>philbull@gmail.com</email>

      <years>2011</years>

    </credit>

    <credit type="author copyright">

      <name>Michael Hill</name>

      <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>

      <years>2011, 2014</years>

    </credit>

    <desc>Swap memory allows your computer to run more applications at the same

    time than will fit into the system memory (RAM).</desc>

  </info>

  <title>What is "swap" memory?</title>

  
Swap memory or swap space is the on-disk component of the virtual

  memory system. It is pre-configured as a swap partition or a

  swap file when Linux is first installed, but can also be added

  later.

  <note>

    
Disk access is very slow compared to memory access. The system

    runs more slowly if there is excessive swapping, or thrashing,

    when the system is unable to find enough free memory. In this situation the

    only solution is to add more RAM.

  </note>

  
To see whether swapping, or paging, has become a performance

  issue:

  <steps>

    <item>

      
Click the <gui>Resources</gui> tab.

    </item>

    <item>

      
The <gui>Memory and Swap History</gui> graph shows memory and swap use

      as percentages.

    </item>

  </steps>

</page>