# ./cachestat -h USAGE: ./cachestat [-T] [ interval [count] ] show Linux page cache hit/miss statistics including read and write hit % optional arguments: -T include timestamp on output examples: ./cachestat # run with default option of 5 seconds delay ./cachestat -T # run with default option of 5 seconds delay with timestamps ./cachestat 1 # print every second hit/miss stats ./cachestat -T 1 # include timestamps with one second samples ./cachestat 1 5 # run with interval of one second for five iterations ./cachestat -T 1 5 # include timestamps with interval of one second for five iterations # ./cachestat 1 HITS MISSES DIRTIES READ_HIT% WRITE_HIT% BUFFERS_MB CACHED_MB 0 58 0 0.0% 100.0% 0 11334 146113 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 244143 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 216833 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 248209 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 205825 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 286654 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 275850 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 272883 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 261633 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 252826 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11334 235253 70 3 100.0% 0.0% 0 11335 204946 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11335 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0 11335 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0 11335 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0 11335 Above shows the reading of a 12GB file already cached in the OS page cache and again below with timestamps. # ./cachestat -T 1 TIME HITS MISSES DIRTIES READ_HIT% WRITE_HIT% BUFFERS_MB CACHED_MB 16:07:10 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:11 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:12 117849 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:13 212558 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:14 302559 1 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:15 309230 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:16 305701 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:17 312754 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:18 308406 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:19 298185 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:20 236128 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:21 257616 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 16:07:22 179792 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 0 11336 Command used to generate the activity # dd if=/root/mnt2/testfile of=/dev/null bs=8192 1442795+0 records in 1442795+0 records out 11819376640 bytes (12 GB) copied, 3.9301 s, 3.0 GB/s Below shows the dirty ratio increasing as we add a file to the page cache # ./cachestat.py HITS MISSES DIRTIES READ_HIT% WRITE_HIT% BUFFERS_MB CACHED_MB 1074 44 13 94.9% 2.9% 1 223 2195 170 8 92.5% 6.8% 1 143 182 53 56 53.6% 1.3% 1 143 62480 40960 20480 40.6% 19.8% 1 223 7 2 5 22.2% 22.2% 1 223 348 0 0 100.0% 0.0% 1 223 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 1 223 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 1 223 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 1 223 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 1 223 The file copied into page cache was named 80m with a size of 83886080 (83886080/4096) = 20480, this matches what we see under dirties