What is the minimum free RAM to be maintained

Hello Friends,

I have been using VPS hosting with 6Core - 6GB RAM.
Hosted only one website (Custom made PHP).
Its daily average unique visitors was nearly 5500.
When I check the ram every time, only 100mb - 300mb free available.
But the server load average was nominal and below 0.3 (1min avg load)

I need some of your experts advice because Google Analytics shows reduce page load time. But GTMetrix, Pingdom test results in 2.1s and thinkwithgoogle.com test shows 3s (Excellent).

I am so much confused on this.

 

Before we start - is 6 GB of memory is dedicated to you and you only? I mean, many VPS providers advertise their services misleading clients. For example, they advertise 6 GB of memory, but "forget" to mention that this memory is shared with other VPS clients on the same server. Hence, you actually get less RAM than you think.

If you actually get 6 GB and not much free memory is available, there's nothing to worry about as long as your websites load fast. Actually, it's even better - it means most of your server's data is stored in RAM instead of HDD, which is a huge benefit, since RAM is much, much faster. I just checked one of my dedicated servers with 8 GB of memory and only 500 MB is free. However, all websites (100+ of them) load blazing-fast.

 

Thanks for your reply! How can I come to know that 6GB RAM is dedicated for me only?
I connected through SSH and found 6GB RAM is available. (Even tested through WHM also).

If you actually get 6 GB and not much free memory is available, there's nothing to worry
Then, why Google says work to improve page loading time?
The maximum request per page is 48
The maximum page size is 946kb
I don't know where to find the root issue?

 

The easiest way is to ask your hosting provider if memory is 100% dedicated or shared.

If you have page speed issues, I'm 99% sure it's not related to RAM. Most likely it's related to the number of requests. I checked one of the most complex sites of mine, and it only has 27 requests.

 

How much free RAM is required, it depends on the CACHING facilities you have on your server right now. You may improve your firstbyte with Memcache, Varnish, OPCache Or, XCache.

 

Sir, actually I am asking what is the minimum ram to be maintained for a site hosted on a VPS environment?

 

At least 50% free Ram should be maintained for stable performance and OOM error under high i/o.

 

myilraj,
>> It depends on your usage, so there's no clear answer. Most of the RAM portion is also used by system processes, But Practical scenarios suggest that there should be at least 25-30% of RAM available free.

 

I do not know your site, but 6GB RAM is very much. Normal website should require just 256MB RAM !! If it has large database of 500MB, then maybe 1.5GB RAM should fit quite OK.
I think RAM is not your problem with regards to Google analytics advice to reduce page load time.
Your main problem is probably huge content management ystem equiped by many addon modules which increasing load time. Also the page size of almost 1MB can be quite alot, you may consider webpagetest.org it will advice you changes, maybe optimize images. But i think main step to reduce load time wqould be to decrease number of elements your website is loading. By element i mean images, css, js, or somehow combine them.

I would google: how to reduce page load time + enter your CMS content management system anme for more targetted results, or ask at your CMS forums.

 

Hi,

Quick answer is as much as possible

But for ex if you have 6GB and only 300MB free it isn't necessarily anything to worry about. To get a better idea of performance check Disk I/O and CPU usage also, load averages.

Assuming you're using Linux check out these threads, it may help fine tuning.

https://lonesysadmin.net/2013/12/22/better-linux-disk-caching-performance-vm-dirty_ratio/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions...-vm-dirty-ratio-and-vm-dirty-background-ratio

But don't get too happy changing system settings