A swap partition (at least 256 MB) — swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other words, data is written to a swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your system is processing.
If you are unsure about what size swap partition to create, make it twice the amount of RAM on your machine (but no larger than 2 GB). It must be of type swap.
Creation of the proper amount of swap space varies depending on a number of factors including the following (in descending order of importance):
The applications running on the machine.
The amount of physical RAM is installed on the machine.
The version of the OS.
Swap should equal 2x physical RAM for up to 2 GB of physical RAM, and then 1x physical RAM for any amount above 2 GB, but never less than 32 MB.
Using this formula, a system with 2 GB of physical RAM would have 4 GB of swap, while one with 3 GB of physical RAM would have 5 GB of swap. Creating a large swap space partition can be especially helpful if you plan to upgrade your RAM at a later time.
Note:
If your partitioning scheme requires a swap partition that is larger than 2 GB, you should create an additional swap partition. For example, if you need 4 GB of swap, you should create two 2 GB swap partitions. If you have 4 GB of RAM, you should create three 2 GB swap partitions. CentOS supports up to 32 swap files.
For systems with really large amounts of RAM (more than 32 GB) you can likely get away with a smaller swap partition (around 1x, or less, of physical RAM).
A /boot/ partition (100 MB) — the partition mounted on /boot/ contains the operating system kernel (which allows your system to boot Linux), along with files used during the bootstrap process. Due to the limitations of most PC BIOSes, creating a small partition to hold these files is a good idea. For most users, a 100 MB boot partition is sufficient.
Note
If your hard drive is more than 1024 cylinders (and your system was manufactured more than two years ago), you may need to create a /boot/ partition if you want the / (root) partition to use all of the remaining space on your hard drive.
Note
If you have a RAID card, be aware that some BIOSes do not support booting from the RAID card. In cases such as these, the /boot/ partition must be created on a partition outside of the RAID array, such as on a separate hard drive.
A root partition (500 MB – 5.0 GB) — this is where “/” (the root directory) is located. In this setup, all files (except those stored in /boot) are on the root partition.
A 500 MB partition allows you to install a minimal installation, while a 5.0 GB root partition lets you perform a full installation, choosing all package groups.