Someone explain to me memory management please

[G73S]

In the above image, it shows that all my memory is on standby and that is a whooping 32 GB!

Where on earth? no program on my computer can use that much memory

1) Where is my memory?

2) how come it shows 0 MB available on the bottom bar, but right above it on another bar it shows like 29 GB available? what is the difference between the 2?

3) how come super fetch is using my memory when I have an SSD and I ran the winsat formal command? shouldn't that disable superfetch from prefetching stuff since I have an SSD?

a detailed explanation is highly appreciated

 

[Cerb]

In the above image, it shows that all my memory is on standby and that is a whooping 32 GB!

No, it doesn't. 32GB is 32768MB. Total usable is shown as 32685. Standby is shown as 29778. IoW, standby memory is taking 91% of your memory, and most of what you're doing is only using 9%, plus some cache. That is not all of it.

Where on earth? no program on my computer can use that much memory

That's why it's listed under standby...standby is memory ready to be used, hence the name standby.

1) Where is my memory?

See above.

2) how come it shows 0 MB available on the bottom bar, but right above it on another bar it shows like 29 GB available? what is the difference between the 2?

Available is free and cached. Non-dirty cached RAM an always be repurposed if an application wants it. It shows 0 free, because some amount less than 1MB is truly and completely empty. The Modified amount cannot be freely gotten rid of and reused.

3) how come super fetch is using my memory when I have an SSD and I ran the winsat formal command? shouldn't that disable superfetch from prefetching stuff since I have an SSD?

It should, according to MS, but doesn't always. There's no harm in disabling it, if you want, running Windows 7.

a detailed explanation is highly appreciated

You asked...
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

 

[G73S]

thank you very very much for this detailed response sir

respect!

 

[postmortemIA]

In xp days, there was no superfetch for non-excutables ( better word would be prefetch) but file io would still be stored in RAM after use for quick reuse. That's what you get when you disable super fetch-

 

[Mark R]

1) Where is my memory?

It's all there.

2) how come it shows 0 MB available on the bottom bar, but right above it on another bar it shows like 29 GB available? what is the difference between the 2?

It says 0 free on the bar, and 29 GB available.

Free memory is memory that has not been used for anything.

Available memory is memory that is immediately available if an app wants it, but has been used for data which the OS is guessing might be reused later. For example, you loaded an application from disk. The files are loaded into RAM and the OS marks the RAM as in use. You then close the application. The file data stays in RAM, but the OS marks the RAM as standby. If you then go back and load the application again, the files are already in RAM. The OS doesn't need to load from disk, so the OS can skip that stage and the app loads instantly.

3) how come super fetch is using my memory when I have an SSD and I ran the winsat formal command? shouldn't that disable superfetch from prefetching stuff since I have an SSD?

Superfetch isn't. Superfetch will load things into RAM before they are ever asked for. The OS guesses what files you like to use, and will pre-load them.

Normal OS behavior is to assume that after you've used a file, you might want to use it again, so that file stays in RAM after you've finished (as long as nothing else wants the RAM for something more important).

 

[piasabird]

People read things like this then they get excited because MS says they are using all their RAM. I have a computer in my basement that runs VISTA 32 bit with 2 gigs of DDR2 800 RAM.