FG
💻 Software

Why does the memory usage in "top" not add up?

Fresh7 days ago
Mar 15, 202616276 views
Confidence Score0%
0%

Problem

I have noticed that sometimes when I run top, the memory usage of each process in the process table does not seem to add up to the total. For example, in the dump below, top says that I am using 16 Gb of memory. However, the process table only shows two processes using a little over 520 Mb. How can…

Unverified for your environment

Select your OS to check compatibility.

1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Fix for: Why does the memory usage in "top" not add up?

Low Risk

From the memory usage related lines in top: Let's ignore the swap. Total memory equals the sum of used and free memory. Used, on the other hand, is the sum of "really used by applications" and cached and buffers. So, in your case goes like this: Mem…

Awaiting Verification

Be the first to verify this fix

Sign in to verify this fix

Environment