Task Manager - Memory Performance

[bkap]

In the Windows Task Manager Performance tab their are values for memory: Total, Cached, Available and Free. What exactly do these mean? Thanks.

Bill

 

[whs]

Total = is all the RAM you have

Cached = is the part where previously used programs or data are stored for a possible reuse (loads faster than from disk). That can be reused any time by active programs/data when needed. It also contains the so called Modified (see below)

Available = is the sum of cached and free

Free = is what it says. Nobody is using it .

You get a better picture of your RAM usage if you look into the Resource Monitor > Memory tab. The colored picture splits it nicely (see picture below). Everything in blue (light or dark) is available, There you also see 3 additional categories:

Hardware Reserved = is RAM that is needed by the hardware - e.g. for an on-board graphics

In Use = is what the system and data currently uses

Modified = is some temporary storage area where the system did not get a chance yet to write the data back to disk.

 

[bkap]

Thanks. Just what I was looking for.

 

[whs]

You are welcome.

 

[LMiller7]

You may at times see a very low or even zero value for Free memory. This is NOT a cause for concern. Windows was designed to operate this way and is actually the ideal case. The important value is available memory. If this is reasonable high there is no cause for concern.

 

[whs]

You may at times see a very low or even zero value for Free memory. This is NOT a cause for concern. Windows was designed to operate this way and is actually the ideal case. The important value is available memory. If this is reasonable high there is no cause for concern.

You are absolutely right. The best case is when there is zero free space. But that usually only occurs after the system was run for a while and Superfetch had a chance to accumulate enouhg stuff in memory.