Do I need more RAM?

Thu Jan 21 11:20:47 MST 2010

Thanks for the explanation! We don't need t hold a car wash (bad timing this
week anyway....;-)) to raise the money for the next larger linode....just
pass the collection jar around for the $50.

Cheers!

Mark

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Joseph Sinclair <plug-discussion at stcaz.net
> wrote:

> According to the free -t line, you have around 80M of "free" RAM on the
> machine. If money is tight then you're fine with the amount of RAM you have.
> If the system starts to slow down in a few months you may want to
> re-investigate.
>
> BTW, free reports numbers in "k", and the free column is the amount of
> memory actually unused after adjustments, so the "-/+ buffers/cache" line
> shows 81388 K free for program use.
>
> Mark Phillips wrote:
> > LOL.....Thanks to everyone for helping me do a better job of phrasing my
> > question....;-)  and for your good suggestions.
> >
> > I agree, one can always use more
> > (clean) air
> > FOOD
> > BEER (wine for some)
> > RAM, CPU,s, (but maybe not ROM)
> >
> > I should have said...."Given a miniscule budget with no extra cash laying
> > around (other than in my pocket or the newspaper class teacher's pocket),
> I
> > am faced with two options to spend money.
> > A - $50/year for an additional 2GB of disk space, which is enough for the
> > next year or so, and we need that disk space for articles and photos.
> > B - $109/year for 8GB of additional disk space (don't need all that now,
> but
> > will grow into it), 180 MB of RAM (do I really need it?) and additional
> > bandwidth that I don't need."
> > Both amounts are due up front - ie discounted over the normal monthly
> cost
> > for up front payment and non-profit status.
> >
> > The minimum RAM requirement (from the documentation) for a Plone site is
> > 512MB. But I have run many small sites on less and they work just fine.
> This
> > one is a case in point.
> >
> > The results of free -t:
> >
> >             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> > Mem:        368836     363408       5428          0      24248      51712
> > -/+ buffers/cache:     287448      81388
> > Swap:       524280      47180     477100
> > Total:      893116     410588     482528
> >
> > Can someone help me interpret these numbers? Based on "The "-/+
> > buffers/cache:" line will tell you how much memory the system is
> > taking because nobody else is using it." I would conclude that the OS (ie
> > the "system") as opposed to the application is using most of the memory
> > because it can, so the app is not being starved. But I can argue the
> other
> > way as well, so I am a little lost.
> >
> > For what it is worth, Plone/Zope are Python beasts. Is there a way to see
> if
> > any of the application is in swap versus RAM? The system does not have a
> > noticeable lag when pages are accessed - it is not instantaneous, but
> faster
> > than my Google apps account.  ;-)
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 8:54 AM, kitepilot at kitepilot.com <
> > kitepilot at kitepilot.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Do I need more air?
> >> Do I need more FOOD?
> >> Do I need MORE BEER!!!
> >>
> >> Give more, MORE, MOOOREEEE!!!!
> >> Gawd, I need more Prozac too...   :)
> >>
> >> You will never have too much memory, or extrapolating to aviation:
> >> The only time I have too much fuel is when the airplane is on fire...
>  ;-)
> >>
> >> top alone will only hand you part of the picture.
> >> Try:
> >> free -t
> >> Look at the line:
> >>  -/+ buffers/cache: XXXX
> >>
> >> Memory is used by buffers that are there only for efficiency, but will
> be
> >> returned to the system on demand.  Sometimes very little used stuff will
> go
> >> to swap, and adding memory will not really help anything (and it won't
> hurt
> >> anything either, other than your checkbook)
> >>
> >> The "-/+ buffers/cache:" line will tell you how much memory the system
> is
> >> taking because nobody else is using it.
> >> YMMV...
> >> ET
> >>
> >> PS: And that "airplane on fire" wisdom is not always true, but works for
> >> novice pilots...
> >> Or:
> >> My job is not to teach how to fly.
> >> My job is to help you stay alive while you learn...  :)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Mark Phillips writes:
> >>
> >>> I have a Zope/Plone 2.5 web site running on Debian on a Linode virtual
> >> host.
> >>> It has grown over the last few years, and now I need to add some more
> >> disk
> >>> space. The site is for a school newspaper, so from August - June,
> >> students
> >>> add news articles and photos.
> >>>
> >>> I was also looking at the output of top, and perhaps I need more RAM as
> >>> well? Top shows I have only 5 MB free out of 368 MB of total RAM, but I
> >> am
> >>> only using 9% of my swap, so perhaps I don't need more RAM. The site
> does
> >>> not seem slow.
> >>>
> >>> Tasks:  69 total,   1 running,  68 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
> >>> Cpu(s):  0.0%us,  0.0%sy,  0.0%ni,100.0%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,
> >>> 0.0%st
> >>> Mem:    368836k total,   363364k used,     5472k free,     8316k
> buffers
> >>> Swap:   524280k total,    46716k used,   477564k free,    67436k cached
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for any suggestions you may have.
> >>>
> >>> Mark
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