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Question about cached memory
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Question about cached memory

NoCommentNoComment Member
edited May 2016 in Help

Hey guys, I recently got a new vps and tried installing the LEMP stack on it, and it seems like the ram usage is unusually high. I got this from free -m:

         total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached

Mem: 4096 1279 2816 69 0 1249

-/+ buffers/cache: 29 4066

Swap: 0 0 0

Is it normal to use that much ram on caching? My vps has literally nothing on it -- only nginx, php-fpm and mysql and apparently I'm only using 715.47 MB of the hard disk. I find it hard to believe that the amount of ram used on caching is higher than everything that's on the disk itself. I am concerned because I have two other VPSes, and both don't nearly use as much ram as this one. My vps with a relatively empty wordpress site and 0 visitors uses has 77 mb of cached memory (this vps has a total of 2gb ram), while my other vps with a wordpress site with 1k visitors daily using redis, fastcgi and other things like fail2ban and some server monitoring module has only 229 mb of cached memory(this vps has a total of 512mb ram).

In short, I'm asking if I have possibly done anything wrong, and if no, did I buy a bad vps?

Comments

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    That's normal. The OS uses all of the RAM for caching (performance) and gives it up as processes need it.

    You will find this informative: http://www.linuxatemyram.com

  • Thanks, the vps provider kinda said the same thing (and same link) to me but I wanted to be sure :P

    But, how is it possible for more ram to be used on disk caching than the total amount of disk space I am using?

  • NickMNickM Member

    smallbibi said: But, how is it possible for more ram to be used on disk caching than the total amount of disk space I am using?

    Just because the RAM is allocated for that purpose doesn't mean that it's actually being used for it.

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