Buffer cache.md

• The buffer cache is a [[kernel subsystem]] that manages buffers in memory to optimize disk I/O performance.

Some key points about the buffer cache

• It maintains a set of buffer heads describing the buffers in the cache.
• it uses a hash table to quickly find the [[buffer head]] for a given device and block number.
• Buffers are allocated on demand from free memory when needed.
• Dirty buffers (modified in memory) are written to disk at regular intervals to minimize I/O impact on user processes.