Swappiness is the kernel parameter that defines how much (and how often) your Linux kernel will copy RAM contents to swap. This parameter’s default value is “60” and it can take anything from “0” to “100”. The higher the value of the swappiness parameter, the more aggressively your kernel will swap.
Linux usually has a default swappiness set at 60, which means when the RAM utilisation reaches 40% capacity, it starts swapping to disc (which is a slower operation). Today, with most PC’s having 16 GB or 32 GB or more RAM, there is no need to be so conservative with this setting.
Many recommend changing this setting to 10 which means it will utilise 90% of the RAM before starting to swap to disk.
See https://opensource.com/article/22/9/swappiness-startup-linux
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