Ubuntu: problem with available SWAP

Question

I am using Ubuntu Linux installed on server equipped by 96 CPUs. I noticed that when I run some calculations it uses almost all RAM and SWAP of the resources:

              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:      131633632    66759364     2092748      447860    62781520    63293596
Swap:       2097148     2097068          80

is it possible to increase SWAP to check whether it could improve performance? If so, could you please specify how this could be done?

don't use normal swap. Just enable zram and forget about it – phuclv Jan 15 '23 at 07:36 — phuclv, Jan 15 '23 at 07:36

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 30 '22 at 13:32

You have over 60GiB of RAM available (the last column), so your system is fine.

You should only be concerned if you see the “used” field close to the total value, in the “Mem” line. That’s what would indicate that your workloads are actually using all your memory.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 30 '22 at 13:51

2

If your system is actively using swap (can be checked using vmstat 1 5) it means your performance is degraded and it needs more RAM, not more swap. You've got ~60GB of RAM available. There's nothing to worry about. I'm not sure you need swap enabled at all.

edited Aug 30 '22 at 13:51

Stephen Kitt

434,908

answered Aug 30 '22 at 13:47

Artem S. Tashkinov

29,025

Ubuntu: problem with available SWAP

2 Answers2