`top` process memory usage: SIZE vs RES

[Jesse Guardiani]

Dan Nelson wrote:

> In the last episode (Sep 11), Jesse Guardiani said:
>> 1.) Where is my Free memory going? I can't account for it
>>     in the SIZE and RES columns of the various processes.
>>     These are relatively constant.
> 
> Disk cache.

I thought it might be something like that. My large test
messages are being written to disk over and over and over
as the message travels down the pipline. Makes a great case
for installing a RAM disk. :)

>  
>> 2.) What, exactly, is RES? `man top` describes it as this:
>>     "RES is the current amount of resident memory", but does
>>     that mean RES is included in SIZE? Or does that mean that
>>     RES should be counted in addition to SIZE?
> 
> RES the amount of SIZE that it currently in core

OK. To clarify, you mean core kernel memory here?
If so, how is that significant? Why should I care?

In other words, why would I ever want to know that?

Thanks.

-- 
Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator
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