In Linux, what is the difference between “buffers” and “cache” reported by the free command?

The “cached” total will also include some other memory allocations, such as any tmpfs filesytems. To see this in effect try: mkdir t mount -t tmpfs none t dd if=/dev/zero of=t/zero.file bs=10240 count=10240 sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches; free -m umount t sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches; free -m and you will see the “cache” … Read more

Caching/preloading files on Linux into RAM

vmtouch seems like a good tool for the job. Highlights: query how much of a directory is cached query how much of a file is cached (also which pages, graphical representation) load file into cache remove file from cache lock files in cache run as daemon vmtouch manual EDIT: Usage as asked in the question … Read more