sles10a:~ # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 2000 61 1939 0 0 9 -/+ buffers/cache: 51 1949 Swap: 2047 0 2047 sles10a:~ # dd if=test of=/dev/null bs=1024 1048576+0 records in 1048576+0 records out 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 34.5933 seconds, 31.0 MB/s sles10a:/ # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 2000 1090 910 0 2 1034 -/+ buffers/cache: 53 1947 Swap: 2047 0 2047 sles10a:/ # sysctl -w vm.drop_caches=1 vm.drop_caches = 1 sles10a:/ # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 2000 60 1939 0 0 9 -/+ buffers/cache: 51 1949 Swap: 2047 0 2047 sles10a:/ #