Need More RAM?

OldSalt5

Cadet
Joined
Jun 4, 2020
Messages
3
Hello,
I have a ~18TB pool of 9x 3TB drives in RaidZ2. My Freenas system currently has 12GB of RAM.
This is a file server, highest workload it will experience is me playing a 1080p video.

Thought I would have enough RAM but today I updated to Freenas 11.3 and was poking around the new UI. Noticed my RAM usage is at like 95%
Total Memory Installed: 11.7 GiB
Free: 0.3 GiB
ZFS Cache: 9.8 GiB
Services: 0.8 GiB.

I read around the internet that the cache will fill the entirety of the space, so memory usage will always show high. Wondering if thats true?
Swap Utilization is pegged at 0 while transferring a large batch of files.
I know my rig is made of consumer hardware, forgive my peasantdom! Its just basically an old PC i stuck a bunch of drives in.

Specs below:
Freenas 11.3
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5Ghz 6-core
Mobo: Asus Sabertooth 990FX
RAM: 12GB DDR3
Video Card (Just so i have a monitor output): Geforce GT 710 1GB
 

Heracles

Wizard
Joined
Feb 2, 2018
Messages
1,401
I read around the internet that the cache will fill the entirety of the space, so memory usage will always show high. Wondering if thats true?

Yes it is...

Swap Utilization is pegged at 0 while transferring a large batch of files.

And swap being at 0 proves that your system has enough memory for the OS, Apps, Jails and others.

A FreeNAS server will never have too much RAM. As you said, it will always use it. So there is no point trying to have some free RAM in your system. At 12 GB, you are above the minimum that is 8 but not much. For what you described as a very minimal load, it will be good for you.

Now, just be sure to plan for your backups because no single server, be a FreeNAS or anything else, can be more than a single point of failure.
 

Samuel Tai

Never underestimate your own stupidity
Moderator
Joined
Apr 24, 2020
Messages
5,398
FreeNAS will happily use as much RAM as you're capable of providing. And what you see is normal behavior. It's not like Windows where there has to be a fairly substantial amount of RAM free so the OS doesn't crash. FreeNAS considers empty RAM a wasted resource, which could be used for ARC cache to improve performance.
 
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