Increase tmpfs size more than available RAM Is that a good option?

Solution 1:

You can give so many data into your tmpfs, as you wish. There is no difference between tmpfs instances in their maximal usage limits. You can even change this easily by a simple remount.

What in the case of the tmpfs counts, it is actual usage.

Tmpfs, against ramfs, is capable to swap out its content. Thus, the statement, that "you can't have a tmpfs much bigger as your physical ram", is simply false. For example, you can have as big tmpfs as you wish - if you have enough free swap space. You can have a 16GB tmpfs with a single GB of ram - although it can cause your system to a little bit of overload, similarly as if you would run a process with 16GB ram on an 1GB machine.

In the daily practice I never meet a single case, as a big tmpfs had been required. In this cases I used always normal filesystem space (mostly below /tmp). But the possibility exists and you can use it if would be needed.