Hello, Something additional I've noticed as I continue to watch the various processes...
When the 'inactive' usage has grown to a large size, I'm seeing two, or maybe three, "bash" processes that have launched/running at the same time as this memory usage has jumped. When these "bash" processes stop/quit (on their own), the memory usages drop dramatically. Could this be from [cron and/or similar] maintenance tasks I've seen discussed? Response appreciated, Russ Preston !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! (?old verbiage included for discussion history?) On Jan 3, 2006, at 9:03 PM, R. D. Preston wrote: > On Jan 3, 2006, at 2:15 PM, Lee Larson wrote: > >> On Jan 3, 2006, at 11:44 AM, R. D. Preston wrote: >> >>> Is anyone up for a convo concerning System Memory? ? and why my >>> 'Inactive' >>> memory grows, while the 'Free' memory slowly dwindles to the >>> point of being >>> exhausted. I've noticed this while watching 'Activity Monitor' >>> in System >>> Memory mode during my modem-hangup problem. >> >> What you're seeing is normal and desirable behavior for a Unix >> system. All Unix systems try very aggressively to use all your RAM >> all the time. The idea is that unused RAM is being wasted, so they >> cache all sorts of useful things there, such as recently opened >> files, system libraries and networking information. This RAM can >> be freed up very quickly, if it is needed by a program. In the >> mean time, it is available hundreds of times faster than through a >> disk access. >> >> >> You can look at the memory allocation by opening up a terminal >> window and typing 'top'. Here's part of what my PowerBook shows: >> >> PhysMem: 64.3M wired, 122M active, 286M inactive, 474M used, >> 550M free >> VM: 3.83G + 128M 26028(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts >> >> >> Here's what each of the categories means: >> >> wired This is memory that's used all the time and is never freed >> up. It's where the operating system kernel lives. >> >> active This is allocated for use and has actually been used >> recently. >> >> inactive This is allocated for use, but has not been used recently.. >> >> used wired+active+inactive >> >> free Not yet used for anything. >> >> >> >> Since the power died last night, I just rebooted the machine for >> the first time in ages. That's why the free memory is so large. as >> I continue to use the machine, more stuff will get cached, and the >> free memory will dwindle. This is a good thing because frequently >> used data is being cached. As this happens, the whole system >> speeds up because your machine doesn't have to go to the slow hard >> drives as often. This is one reason why I hardly ever shut down a >> Mac OS X machine. People who shut down their machine every night >> may be taking a performance hit. >> >> >> Don't worry about your memory unless the pageouts number in the >> top display gets big. This is the indicator that shows you're >> using all your RAM and then some. >> >> Here's the same top information 10 minutes later. All I was doing >> in the interim was reading email, typing this message and printing >> a pdf. >> >> PhysMem: 66.4M wired, 226M active, 552M inactive, 746M used, >> 350M free >> VM: 3.94G + 128M 26868(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts > > The time span I'm seeing is somewhere after 7, 8, 9 hrs., etc. > > Regards, > Russ Preston > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 24 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
