kernel 2.6.9-89.0.9.ELsmp related question - drop_cache

[amit_shukla]

We are currently on the kernel version 2.6.9-89.0.9.ELsmp and we have seen cases of cache usage going very high.(almost till the level of total available memory)
To solve this issue we used the following command:

echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

The result is that it drops clean caches, dentries and inodes from memory, causing that memory to become free.

The man pages on the proc displays that drop_caches is available since the kernel version 2.6.16.
refert to the url below :
linux.die.net/man/5/proc]proc(5): process info pseudo-filesystem - Linux man page

However as stated earlier drop_caches works on kernel version 2.6.9-89.0.9.ELsmp as well.
How can it be confirmed if its a safe option to use drop_caches in 2.6.9-89.0.9.ELsmp or
is any other source from where this can be verified ?

Thanks in advance.

[coopstah13]

Do you have a specific reason for doing this? Linux memory management differs from windows memory management (pre vista) in which it caches things read from disk to improve performance. You should not notice this even occurring and when applications actually need memory the cache memory is freed automatically.