Linux kernel manages all RAM memory in your computer. Unused memory goes into a special buffering pool, where the kernel caches all recently used data. If a process attempts to read a file and the kernel already has the file cached, reading it is as fast as reading RAM.
Filesystem-heavy task, such as compiling source code, processing video files, etc. benefit from as much free memory as possible in buffering pool. It is not uncommon today to see users with powerful systems running tiling window managers in only a few megabytes of memory. Also, with the personal computer market in decline, people tend to keep their computers longer.
In this article I continue the measurements started in part 1 and part 2 of this series.
Read more at Layer 3 Networking Blog.
