What Is Dirty Memory in Linux?
Contents

‘Dirty’ memory is memory representing data on disk that has been changed but has not yet been written out to disk. Among other things, it includes: Memory containing buffered writes that have not been flushed to disk yet. Regions of memory mapped files that have been updated but not written out to disk yet.

What is Linux dirty cache?

Dirty means that the data is stored in the Page Cache, but needs to be written to the underlying storage device first. The content of these dirty pages is periodically transferred (as well as with the system calls sync or fsync) to the underlying storage device.

What are dirty pages in memory?

Pages in the main memory that have been modified during writing data to disk are marked as “dirty” and have to be flushed to disk before they can be freed. … A file that is created or opened in the page cache, but not written to, might result in a zero byte file at a later read.

Alexander Ross

Alexander Ross

Gaming, Esports & Interactive Media Writer

Alexander Ross has covered the video game industry for a decade, writing deep dives on game design, esports tournaments, VR developments, and gaming culture.

Share this article
Twitter Facebook Pinterest