linux-kernel - Low cache usage, lots of free mem :-(

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Date:	Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:31:55 +0200
From:	Maciej Sołtysiak <pysiak@...il.com>
To:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Low cache usage, lots of free mem :-(

Hi,

I have a weird problem. My free -m output is:

root@...lnx002:/proc/sys/vm# free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           987        388        599          0         10        171
-/+ buffers/cache:        206        781
Swap:         1913         32       1881

This shows as much as 599 MB of free memory while the cache using only 171MB.
Usually people have it the way round ;-)

Now, this is not normal for this server, it used use way more for
cache, but now it doesn't.
That forces the apps to fetch for iscsi storage more often than I'd like it to.

What might've happened to the OS that it's refusing to use more memory as cache?
The server got slower and I'd like to be able to revert the situation
without a reboot.

Please CC me, I'm not on the list.

Thanks!
Maciej