free memory keeps going down on 5.4-release

[Charles Swiger]

On Nov 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Dan Nelson wrote:
> In the last episode (Nov 06), Roselyn Lee said:
>> Does freebsd use memory for disk caching that is not accounted for in
>> these stats?
>
> Yes, free memory is used as cache.  As "Free" decreases, you will see
> "Inact, "Cache" and "Buf" increase.

Yep.  What many people are looking for when they ask "how much memory  
is available to run new programs" is actually not just the "Free"  
memory, but something closer to "Free" + "Inactive".  However, stuff  
that is in "Inactive" which has been modified will need to be written  
out to the swapfile before being evicted to make room for another  
program...

-- 
-Chuck