2
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32086 30156 1930 51 564 26606
-/+ buffers/cache: 2985 29101
Swap: 31997 12 31985
Out of my 32 GB of ram, why is 26 GB cached? What is the implication of caching? Does that mean I can't use them and will run out of memory soon? Or is this actually a good thing?
user486019
Posted 2015-08-20T03:57:06.000
Reputation: 21
1
Yes, it's a good thing. Out of your 32 GB of ram, the 26 GB is 'cached' because your programs do not need it, therefore the OS puts it to good use by storing recently accessed files in it.
If a program requests more memory, the OS will just reclaim parts of the cache for it.
There's one exception, though. Files stored in "tmpfs" filesystems such as /tmp are actually stored in the page cache, so they also count as 'cached' memory usage, but of course cannot be automatically reclaimed, until you delete them yourself.
Therefore you should check df -Tht tmpfs, make sure you don't have any huge files in there.
user1686
Posted 2015-08-20T03:57:06.000
Reputation: 283 655
2linuxatemyram.com. 'Nuff said. – Deltik – 2015-08-20T04:08:06.673
3Unused memory is wasted memory. Anything that is not needed for an app or OS is used for cache to speed up access to storage. It will be released if something needs it. – Paul – 2015-08-20T04:08:38.077