On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:10:39 +0000 (UTC), Frederick Bruckman
<fredb@immanent.net> wrote:
> In article <7b96990305011607377fd6ca4b@mail.gmail.com>,
>         Mark Thomas <thomas.s.mark@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 15:12:24 +0000 (UTC), Frederick Bruckman
> > Is there a way flush the "Universal Buffer Cache" or do I need to?
> > When I transfer many files at once, say using 'scp' the cache goes
> > _way_ up and stays there for a long time.
> 
> Indeed it does. If it didn't, the memory would be mostly
> wasted.  It'll be paged out when needed, or as time goes by.
> The "sync" command will write it all out to disk at once, though
> not necesarily purge it from the cache. You might want to do that
> before trying something that may crash. There is a way to tweak
> the cache usage, "sysctl vm", but mainly it sounds like it's
> working the way it's supposed to.
> 

many thanks Frederick. that helps a bunch.

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