Why does rsync eat all my RAM and not give it back?

[eggbert]

This is not a kubuntu question per say, but rather a general Linux question...

I have rsync set up in a cron job every night to back up my home directory to an external USB hard drive. This works fine, but as the script is running memory usage shoots through the roof.

I have 6 GB of ram, and sometimes if I am working while rsync is running, Linux actually starts using swap space. This is all fine if rsync needs all that RAM... BUT it does not release it after it completes.

It is not cached memory. If I do free -m after it completes, it shows it's all buffered.

I do not see rsync in top after the job completes, so I do not think it is hung up somewhere.

So why won't rsync give me my ram back? I have to actually reboot every morning just to get it back.

I have observed this for a long time, but now that I am running KDE I have less free RAM, so it is more of an issue now.

Thanks

[Guest]

Hi,

I am having the same problem as you described did you find an answer why rsync not giving memory back?

[james147]

Can you post the results of

free -m

after you encounter the problem.