Until Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 there was a limitation on the partition size of 2GB for each swap space. This was due to the mkswap command not supporting creation of a swap partition larger than 2GB. If the system requires more than 2GB of swap space, work around this limitation by creating multiple swap partitions.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and above, the mkswap command allows the creation of a swap partition of a larger size than 2GB.
To summarize:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 supports upto 32 swap partitions, each can be a maximum size of 2GB. Maximum total swap size is 64GB.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and higher supports larger swap partitions, each can be of maximum size set by the file size limit and the block device limit for swap partitions on that platform. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 has a 1TB limitation as maximum size of block devices, so it’s 1TB.
While larger swap partitions are permitted, one large swap partition could affect system performance. For better performance it is recommended to split swap space to multiple discs. Separating swap partitions to different disk could reduce the load on a single disk.
Red Hat is working to update this information in the installation guide.
