Coder Trainee

Mar 5, 2026 · Operations

Why is Linux’s buff/cache so large and how to clear it automatically

When running `free -h` on a Linux system, you may notice the buff/cache entry consuming over a gigabyte, leaving little memory for applications; this article explains that the cache is built from file I/O, shows how to manually drop it via `/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches`, and provides a cron‑based script to automate the cleanup.