Within the output of top, there are two fields, marked "buff/cache" and "avail Mem" in the memory and swap usage lines:
What do these two fields mean?
I've tried Googling them, but the results only bring up generic articles on top, and they don't explain what these fields signify.
Best Answer
top
’s manpage doesn’t describe the fields, butfree
’s does:Basically, “buff/cache” counts memory used for data that’s on disk or should end up there soon, and as a result is potentially usable (the corresponding memory can be made available immediately, if it hasn’t been modified since it was read, or given enough time, if it has); “available” measures the amount of memory which can be allocated and used without causing more swapping (see How can I get the amount of available memory portably across distributions? for a lot more detail on that).