Maximum swappage

When you set up a brand new Linux server, do you create a single 128 MB swap partition? If so, did you know that you are severely limiting swap performance? Would you like to increase swap performance by several orders of magnitude, and to create swap partitions larger than 1 GB? It's possible, requiring no kernel patches or special hardware, just pure geek know-how!
Some of you may not really care about swap. After all, Linux systems are typically very memory efficient, and swap is often barely touched. While often true on desktop systems, servers are another story. Because servers may handle unexpected stresses, such as runaway processes, denial of service attacks, or even the Slashdot effect, they need to have adequate high-speed swap so that they do not grind to a halt and possibly crash when all physical memory (and then some) is exhausted.More...