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I have many truecrypt containers that contain random files that I am trying to consolidate into another set of containers that are better organized this time.
To do this requires me to copy all the contents of every container that I have into a central location where I can better categorize these files.
While carrying out this operation, I have noticed that as I read contents from a mounted container, my available physical memory falls linearly until available is consumed.
This physical memory is released/made available only when I dismount the container(s).
Hence it appears to me that the truecrypt driver itself is caching file contents of the container(s) in memory with the expectation that once a file is read, it will be again sometime in the future (which is very incorrect in my use case as I don't read the file again once it's been read from the container and copied to another drive).
Because all available physical memory is consumed by truecrypt, I find it very difficult to use my computer until I dismount the volume, and I have 16GB DDR3 RAM on my system!.
I don't want truecrypt to consume all available physical memory - how do I make it consume a fraction (0.5, 0.7, etc) of available physical memory instead?
Using Windows 7 SP1, x64.
You're not running Windows 8 by any chance are you? – Sam – 2012-12-31T04:15:39.290
Yes, please identify the specific operating system and vendor distribution you are using? Without this information an accurate answer is not very likely. – mdpc – 2012-12-31T04:19:23.343
Windows 7 SP1, x64 – PoorLuzer – 2012-12-31T07:16:24.460
You kind of didn't describe the problem at all. You say "I find it very difficult to use my computer", but you don't say why. What actual problem do you have? Are some operations slow? Are you getting error messages? – David Schwartz – 2012-12-31T07:21:32.187
@DavidSchwartz: I believe the "problem" is that the program consumes all physical memory! To elaborate (seriously?) consider that I need to play a game while files are being read off a Truecrypt volume - this game will take ages to load as I now have atleast two programs fighting over the available physical memory! Am I the only person who is facing this issue? – PoorLuzer – 2012-12-31T10:49:09.077
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@PoorLuzer: That's not how memory works on any modern operating system. Modern operating systems can allow physical memory to be used for whatever is the most efficient use of that memory at any particular time. If you need to play a game, physical memory will rapidly be reassigned to the game and the cached data will be discarded. (Under memory pressure, memory is taken from whatever is making the least important use of it. Memory need not be wasted to be used.) See this answer which discusses a similar issue.
– David Schwartz – 2012-12-31T18:36:04.953@DavidSchwartz: I want to intentionally limit the memory that TrueCrypt can use (analogous to ulimit) as it does not seem to release the memory until a container is unmounted. Hence, the OS needs to do a lot of thrashing to load any other application or extend the memory needs of an already loaded application. – PoorLuzer – 2013-01-01T03:27:03.790