SWAP memory being used handling large datasets (Ubuntu 12.04)

I ran into an issue where SWAP memory was being used in moving around large files in Ubuntu 12.04. This slowed down my computer and I had to restart a couple of times a time. I found the solution at http://askubuntu.com/questions/157793/why-is-swap-being-used-even-though-i-have-plenty-of-free-ram. A similar solution probably works for other distributions.