Re: FreeBSD config

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Shridhar Daithankar wrote:

> Dror Matalon wrote:
>
> > Let me try and say it again. I know that setting effective_cache_size
> > doesn't affect the OS' cache. I know it just gives Postgres the *idea*
> > of how much cache the OS is using. I know that. I also know that a
> > correct hint helps performance.
> >
> > I've read Matt Dillon's discussion about the freebsd VM at
> > http://www.daemonnews.org/200001/freebsd_vm.html and I didn't see him
> > saying that Freebsd uses all the free RAM for disk cache. Would you care
> > to provide a URL pointing to that?
>
> I don't believe freeBSD yses everything available unlike linux. It is actually a
> good thing. If you have 1GB RAM and kernel buffers set at 600MB, you are
> guaranteed to have some mmory in crunch situations.

Linux doesn't work with a pre-assigned size for kernel cache.
It just grabs whatever's free, minus a few megs for easily launching new
programs or allocating more memory for programs, and uses that for the
cache.  then, when a request comes in for more memory than is free, it
dumps some of the least used buffers and gives them back.

It would seem to work very well underneath a mixed load server like an
LAPP box.