Stop making swap partitions · GitHub
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joshenders/swap.md
Last active<br>June 18, 2026 19:38
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Stop making swap partitions
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swap.md
Stop making swap partitions—use swap files instead!
Swap files have had the same performance characteristics as swap partitions for more than 20 years and yet, linux distributions continue to encourage the use of swap partitions during install.
Swap files are easier to use/add/remove/modify/extend after installation. They're better in every way––use swap files!
Create a swap file.
💡 You can use dd for this too but if your filesystem supports it, fallocate is faster.
fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
Only root should be able to write to the swap file.
chmod 0600 /swapfile
Format the swap file.
mkswap /swapfile
Enable it.
swapon /swapfile
Make it persist across boots.
echo "/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
joshenders
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Dec 7, 2023
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If you're using btrfs:
btrfs filesystem mkswapfile --size 2G swapfile<br>swapon swapfile
https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Swapfile.html
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