On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Alex Tabony wrote:
> I have a redhat 7 machine with 256mb ram running Samba for file/print
> serving and mail services for 30 windows clients. I have been observing the
> memory usage on the machine and I am a bit confused.
>
[ship]
>
> The weird thing, is that later on today when no one is on the system, free
> will give me almost the exact same numbers. Why are not the buffers and
> cache getting flushed (right word?). I've been watching the memory usage
> for the last few days and it stays about the same no matter how the system
> is being used.
>
> There is not much running on the system. As you can see all the memory is
> tied up in buffers. Shouldn't these get cleaned up by update when they are
> done being used? It makes me anxious thinking that user files are being
> stored in system memory and never getting written to disk.
>
> Thanks in advance for any replies.
>
Most of the buffers are probably read buffers, not write buffers. They
are disk information that was read, and because the memory was not
needed for anything else, the kernel just kept the information in memory
incase it is needed again. If it is, then the disk doesn't have to be
read again. If it isn't, or if the memory is neaded for something else,
then nothing was lost by keeping the information in memory.
Mikkel
--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
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