Messages in this thread | | | From | "Stephen C. Tweedie" <> | Date | Mon, 28 Jun 1999 19:17:49 +0100 (BST) | Subject | Re: Status of the buffer cache in 2.3.7+ |
| |
Hi,
On Mon, 28 Jun 1999 10:47:54 +1000, Dancer <dancer@zeor.simegen.com> said:
> Possibly an equally dense question is: can the buffer-cache and the > page-cache be disabled independantly? (and on a system where > file-data-caching is wasteful, is it practical?)
No. The "caches" are also "buffers". In other words, they don't just hold unused data which is being remembered in case it is needed again soon: they also hold data which is in active use. Filesystems rely on the buffer cache as a place to store metadata for currently-accessed files. The virtual memory system relies on the page cache to hold executable code in memory.
Tuning the rate at which we prune unused data out of the caches may be appropriate if you have unusual memory requirements, but disabling the caches is not (at least not unless you want to write your own filesystems which use alternative IO mechanisms).
--Stephen
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |