diff --git a/docs/src/running-validator/validator-start.md b/docs/src/running-validator/validator-start.md
index b9b6c05b3f..35316e83fb 100644
--- a/docs/src/running-validator/validator-start.md
+++ b/docs/src/running-validator/validator-start.md
@@ -399,9 +399,9 @@ Example configuration:
 3. Create at least 250GB of swap space
   - Choose a device to use in place of `SWAPDEV` for the remainder of these instructions.
     Ideally select a free disk partition of 250GB or greater on a fast disk. If one is not
-    available, create a swap file with `sudo fallocate -l 250G /swapfile`, set its permissions
-    with `sudo chmod 0600 /swapfile` and use `/swapfile` as `SWAPDEV` for the remainder of
-    these instructions
+    available, create a swap file with `sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1MiB count=250KiB`,
+    set its permissions with `sudo chmod 0600 /swapfile` and use `/swapfile` as `SWAPDEV` for
+    the remainder of these instructions
   - Format the device for usage as swap with `sudo mkswap SWAPDEV`
 4. Add the swap file to `/etc/fstab` with a new line containing `SWAPDEV swap swap defaults 0 0`
 5. Enable swap with `sudo swapon -a` and mount the tmpfs with `sudo mount /mnt/solana-accounts/`