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How to Check Detailed RAM Usage on Your VPS
How to Check Detailed RAM Usage on Your VPS

Checking RAM usage on VPS

Updated over 11 months ago

If you see an unusually high RAM usage in the hPanel dashboard:

Our recommendation is to check the detailed usage inside the server. Just log in to your VPS via SSH and enter the following command:

free -m

It will generate a table breaking down the RAM usage similar to this:

Let's go over each column:

  • Total - the RAM limit set for your VPS plan

  • Used - memory in use at the moment

  • Free - unused memory

  • Shared - memory used by temporary files

  • Buff/cache - memory used by kernel buffers and page cache

  • Available - how much memory your server can additionally use to execute further processes

NOTES

  • Due to the calculation method, there may be variations between the total and the sum of used and free memory

  • The hPanel dashboard graph displays the sum of used and buff/cache as used memory

If you see high usage in the cache column, you do not need to worry! Caching improves the performance of your VPS by using free memory to buffer frequently-accessed files.

In addition, Linux has a built-in memory management feature that will automatically release cache memory as pressure increases within your VPS. This will prevent it from running out of memory - so you don't have to clear the cache to increase available memory 😊

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