Usb Disk A Memory Useage

when on idle with nothing but the power lead plugged into my laptop memory useage shows at around about 400MB (it has 2GB memory), yet when i plug in 2 of my portable hard drives (one is 1TB, another is 750GB) not doing anything, they are just plugged in, i then press ctrl+esc and then memory useage is showing about 12-1300MB.... why on earth does it use that much? the system doesn't exactly hang or anything but it's nice to know what it's being used on.....

any ideas anyone?

thanks in advance

I'll bet it is used as a cache (file system cache, in your case).

I'll bet it is used as a cache (file system cache, in your case).
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yeh if i go into sysinfo it says a lot of memory is cached, for instance it might say memory: 500MB (+1GB caches). meaning what exactly for me? h34r:

bit old, but is fairly explanatory http://gentoo-wiki.com/FAQ_Linux_Memory_Management

Andy

bit old, but is fairly explanatory http://gentoo-wiki.com/FAQ_Linux_Memory_Management

Andy
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after a quick read on the cache bit... it looks like taking ctrl+esc memory useage is somewhat incorrect, whereas 'top' or in sysinfo where it tells you how much you have free+cached, that is how much you really have.

will read more later, thanks again Andy.

edit:

article says
By default, the Linux kernel runs in and manages only low memory. This makes managing the page tables slightly easier, which in turn makes memory accesses slightly faster. The downside is that it can't use all of the memory once the amount of total RAM reaches the neighborhood of 880 MB. This has historically not been a problem, especially for desktop machines.

To be able to use all the RAM on an 1GB machine or better, the kernel needs to be recompiled. Go into 'make menuconfig' (or whichever config is preferred) and set the following option:

does this mean i can't even come close to using the 2gb of ram my machine has? unless i switch to 64bit suse?

nope, as i said, it's a bit old ( lost my newer version under all my bookmarks ), as most *nix systems can work with more ram

Andy

nope, as i said, it's a bit old ( lost my newer version under all my bookmarks ), as most *nix systems can work with more ram

Andy
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i remember seeing your list of bookmarks.... well organised hehe. thanks for clarification andy, although perhaps suse 11 is the time to switch to 64bit, time will soon tell.

cheers once again Andy,

Ross.