Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!umd5!uvaarpa!mcnc!rti!tijc02!seb022
From: seb022@tijc02.UUCP (Scott Bemis         )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: /dev/swap - possibility of it being a ramdisk
Message-ID: <183@tijc02.UUCP>
Date: 15 Dec 87 21:08:44 GMT
References: <712@qetzal.UUCP>
Organization: Texas Instr., Johnson City TN
Lines: 17

> Hello Wizards,
> 
> Watching my poor little unix boxes swap, it occurred to me:
> why not utilize some extra ram to implement /dev/swap? It seems that
> the machine would speed up quite a bit, and hey, extra memory
> is pretty inexpensive, at least for the smaller 
> unix boxes. Also, it would be tactically easier to
> 
> I've never seen anyone mention this, and it may be that it would
> require major hacking on the kernel, but you guys know best...
> 
I currently have "two ram disks" on a VAX 8600 using the AT&T UNIX V
Release 2.0 Version 2. I currently have /tmp and /usr/tmp in these
ram disks. Since the VAX 8600 has 32 megabytes of memory, it rarely ever
swaps. So, the swap area is out on disk. I have never tried putting swap
in memory. Uniq Digital Technologies INC, 28 South Water Street, Batavia, IL 
60510, telephone; (312) 879-1566 gave me the device driver to do this.