The quick answer is that a swap partition is faster than a swap file.  Using a file means you have the overhead of the file system software.
Using a partition means that the kernel can use the swap space with less overhead.

If you noticed when you installed, the linux installer only wants to allocate as much swap space as you have memory.  If you intend to add more memory later, you might want to
make your swap partition as large as the maximum size of memory you computer will hold.  OTOH, I've noticed that I hardly ever use any swap space at all and I only have 2GB
of memory.

Watch the memory use in more or less real time in you system monitor app.

On 03/15/2015 09:13 PM, Michael Havens wrote: