So if I want to keep the ram usage down is it safe to assume I should switch to using ufs?
I'm just wanting to learn how to optimize the usage of ram. I tried using the search bar but had difficulty finding the answer I am looking for. I like the features that ZFS offers and would like to learn more about it. I'm just curious if the spike in ram usage is due to the transferring data (sometimes up to 50 Gb) from the external drive and then will lower after ZFS is done processing. It seems like the ram is being used for quite a while after the data is transferred and I'm trying to find out why. Maybe I'm just not searching the correct terms.
It's going to use just as much memory. There's an age old mantra that says, unused memory is useless memory. Most of this "used" memory are various caches, regardless if it's ZFS or UFS. These will be purged if there are more pressing memory needs somewhere else.
The best thing to do is to stop worrying about it and let the system do what it's designed to do. One of the core components of any kernel (not just FreeBSD's) is to manage memory.
Running a bunch of websites. They're a tad "overpowered" though. But, the plus side is that almost everything runs from RAM eventually. The database servers typically have something in the order of 368GB.
At work, there are quite a few machines with 1/2 TB, and the first 1TB machines are showing up. There are also machines with many hundreds of disk drives connected. And machines where every single PCIe slot is filled with SAS-3 and InfiniBand cards. These machines have high core count CPUs too. Their purpose is typically IO servers and data management for cluster computing.
