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Basically what the question says. I have 16 GB of memory and task manager says 8 GB are in use but it only takes up 3 GB compressed. Wouldn't I have 13 GB free even though task manager says only 8 GB are free?

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EnderShadow
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  • "Free" or "Available"? they way task manager displays on the memory tab, "Free" doesn't count the memory in use by cache, but "Available" counts memory that can be quickly reclaimed from IO cache whenever an app needs it. What does Available say? – Frank Thomas Sep 05 '16 at 08:53
  • Task manager says 8 GB are available. I can add an image if you want. – EnderShadow Sep 05 '16 at 09:12
  • I added an image. – EnderShadow Sep 05 '16 at 09:15
  • It is my understanding that it is telling you that 2.3GB of the 8.2GB in use is compressed, not that the whole 8.2GB exists in only 2.3GB space. Thats how i've always read it anyway. – Frank Thomas Sep 05 '16 at 09:18
  • Is that how it's supposed to be read? That makes more sense. – EnderShadow Sep 05 '16 at 09:21
  • Get a separate tool for memory usage statistics. Windows TM is most confusing and shows different stuff on different versions (old NT vs 6.x vs current 8/10 spam-candy). – Overmind Sep 05 '16 at 11:02

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Compressed doesn't mean "used". This new Windows 10 feature compresses data which would be paged out into the pagefile on disk in earlier Windows versions. But this causes disk IO and a delay when you need to read the data back.

If you hover over the first line of "memory composition" you see how much RAM was compressed and how many RAM is saved:

enter image description here

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magicandre1981
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