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google-cloud-platformgoogle-compute-enginegoogle-cloud-monitoring

What is "Disk Data (cached)" in the memory usage chart metrics of GCP compute instance

I have a compute engine instance in Google Cloud Platform. I have monitoring agent installed on it. There is a memory part (Disk Data (cached)) shown in memory detail chart, that is using more than 50% of my total available memory.

May I know What is this Disk Data (cached) and why its taking that much of memory? enter image description here

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Solution

  • I assume it's a Linux VM? That's just normal behavior of Linux to use spare memory for disk caching. It is unobtrusive.

    See https://www.linuxatemyram.com/ for an overview.

    Also might be usefull - https://andythemoron.com/blog/2017-04-23/Understanding-Linux-Memory-Usage on how to check and interpret memory usage with free utility.