The swap partition is an independent section of the hard disk used solely for swapping; no other files can reside there. The swap file is a special file in the filesystem that resides amongst your system and data files. To see what swap space you have, use the command swapon -s.

What is Linux swap partition used for?

You can create a swap partition that is used by Linux to store idle processes when the physical RAM is low. The swap partition is disk space set aside on a hard drive. It is quicker to access RAM than files stored on a hard drive.

Do I really need a swap partition?

There are several reasons why you would need swap. If your system has RAM less than 1 GB, you must use swap as most applications would exhaust the RAM soon. If your system uses resource heavy applications like video editors, it would be a good idea to use some swap space as your RAM may be exhausted here.