The Memory panel displays server-wide and group memory utilization statistics. As on the CPU panel, groups correspond to resource pools, running virtual machines, or other worlds that are consuming memory.

The first line, found at the top of the Memory panel displays the current time, time since last reboot, number of currently running worlds, and memory overcommitment averages. The memory overcommitment averages over the past one, five, and fifteen minutes appear. Memory overcommitment of 1.00 means a memory overcommitment of 100 percent.

Table 1. Memory Panel Statistics
Field Description
PMEM (MB)

Displays the machine memory statistics for the server. All numbers are in megabytes.

total
Total amount of the machine memory in the server.
vmk
Amount of the machine memory being used by the ESXi VMkernel.
other
Amount of the machine memory being used by everything other than the ESXi VMkernel.
free
Amount of the machine memory that is free.
VMKMEM (MB)

Displays the machine memory statistics for the ESXi VMkernel. All numbers are in megabytes.

managed
Total amount of the machine memory managed by the ESXi VMkernel.
min free
Minimum amount of the machine memory that the ESXi VMkernel aims to keep free.
rsvd
Total amount of the machine memory currently reserved by resource pools.
ursvd
Total amount of the machine memory currently unreserved.
state
Current machine memory availability state. Possible values are high, soft, hard and low. High means that the machine memory is not under any pressure and low means that it is.
NUMA (MB)

Displays the ESXi NUMA statistics. This line appears only if the ESXi host is running on a NUMA server. All numbers are in megabytes.

For each NUMA node in the server, two statistics are displayed:
  • The total amount of machine memory in the NUMA node that is managed by ESXi.
  • The amount of machine memory in the node that is currently free (in parentheses).

Shared memory for the ESXi host might be larger than the total amount of memory if memory is over-committed.

PSHARE (MB)

Displays the ESXi page-sharing statistics. All numbers are in megabytes.

shared
Amount of the physical memory that is being shared.
common
Amount of the machine memory that is common across worlds.
saving
Amount of the machine memory that is saved because of page sharing.

shared = common + saving

SWAP (MB)

Displays the ESXi swap usage statistics. All numbers are in megabytes.

curr
Current swap usage.
rclmtgt
Where the ESXi system expects the reclaimed memory to be. Memory can be reclaimed by swapping or compression.
r/s
Rate at which the memory is swapped in by the ESXi system from disk.
w/s
Rate at which the memory is swapped to disk by the ESXi system.
ZIP (MB)

Displays the ESXi memory compression statistics. All numbers are in megabytes.

zipped
Total compressed physical memory.
saved
Saved memory by compression.
MEMCTL (MB)

Displays the memory balloon statistics. All numbers are in megabytes.

curr
Total amount of the physical memory reclaimed using the vmmemctl module.
target
Total amount of physical memory the ESXi host attempts to reclaim using the vmmemctl module.
max
Maximum amount of the physical memory the ESXi host can reclaim using the vmmemctl module.
AMIN Memory reservation for this resource pool or virtual machine.
AMAX Memory limit for this resource pool or virtual machine. A value of -1 means Unlimited.
ASHRS Memory shares for this resource pool or virtual machine.
NHN Current home node for the resource pool or virtual machine. This statistic is applicable only on NUMA systems. If the virtual machine has no home node, a dash (-) appears.
NRMEM (MB) Current amount of remote memory allocated to the virtual machine or resource pool. This statistic is applicable only on NUMA systems.
N% L Current percentage of memory allocated to the virtual machine or resource pool that is local.
MEMSZ (MB)

Amount of physical memory allocated to a resource pool or virtual machine. The values are the same for the VMM and VMX groups.

MEMSZ = GRANT + MCTLSZ + SWCUR + "never touched"

GRANT (MB) Amount of guest physical memory mapped to a resource pool or virtual machine. The consumed host machine memory is equal to GRANT - SHRDSVD. The values are the same for the VMM and VMX groups.
CNSM

Amount of the memory currently consumed by the virtual machine. The memory currently consumed by the virtual machine is equal to the amount of memory that the VM guest operating system currently uses, excluding the amount of memory saved for sharing if memory sharing is enabled on the VM, excluding the amount of memory saved if some of the VM memory is compressed. For more information on memory sharing and memory compression, see the vSphere Resource Management documentation.

SZTGT (MB) Amount of machine memory the ESXi VMkernel wants to allocate to a resource pool or virtual machine. The values are the same for the VMM and VMX groups.
TCHD (MB) Working set estimate for the resource pool or virtual machine. The values are the same for the VMM and VMX groups.
%ACTV Percentage of guest physical memory that is being referenced by the guest. This is an instantaneous value.
%ACTVS Percentage of guest physical memory that is being referenced by the guest. This is a slow moving average.
%ACTVF Percentage of guest physical memory that is being referenced by the guest. This is a fast moving average.
%ACTVN Percentage of guest physical memory that is being referenced by the guest. This is an estimation. (You might see this statistic displayed, but it is intended for VMware use only.)
MCTL? Memory balloon driver is installed or not. N means no, Y means yes.
MCTLSZ (MB) Amount of physical memory reclaimed from the resource pool by way of ballooning.
MCTLTGT (MB) Amount of physical memory the ESXi system attempts to reclaim from the resource pool or virtual machine by way of ballooning.
MCTLMAX (MB) Maximum amount of physical memory the ESXi system can reclaim from the resource pool or virtual machine by way of ballooning. This maximum depends on the guest operating system type.
SWCUR (MB) Current swap usage by this resource pool or virtual machine.
SWTGT (MB) Target where the ESXi host expects the swap usage by the resource pool or virtual machine to be.
SWR/s (MB) Rate at which the ESXi host swaps in memory from disk for the resource pool or virtual machine.
SWW/s (MB) Rate at which the ESXi host swaps resource pool or virtual machine memory to disk.
LLSWR/s (MB) Rate at which memory is read from the host cache. The reads and writes are attributed to the VMM group only, LLSWAP statistics are not displayed for the VM group.
LLSWW/s (MB) Rate at which memory is written to the host cache from various sources. The reads and writes are attributed to the VMM group only, LLSWAP statistics are not displayed for the VM group.
CPTRD (MB) Amount of data read from checkpoint file.
CPTTGT (MB) Size of checkpoint file.
ZERO (MB) Resource pool or virtual machine physical pages that are zeroed.
SHRD (MB) Resource pool or virtual machine physical pages that are shared.
SHRDSVD (MB) Machine pages that are saved because of resource pool or virtual machine shared pages.
OVHD (MB) Current space overhead for resource pool.
OVHDMAX (MB) Maximum space overhead that might be incurred by resource pool or virtual machine.
OVHDUW (MB) Current space overhead for a user world. (You might see this statistic displayed, but it is intended for VMware use only.)
GST_NDx (MB) Guest memory allocated for a resource pool on NUMA node x. This statistic is applicable on NUMA systems only.
OVD_NDx (MB) VMM overhead memory allocated for a resource pool on NUMA node x. This statistic is applicable on NUMA systems only.
TCHD_W (MB) Write working set estimate for resource pool.
CACHESZ (MB) Compression memory cache size.
CACHEUSD (MB) Used compression memory cache.
ZIP/s (MB/s) Compressed memory per second.
UNZIP/s (MB/s) Decompressed memory per second.
Table 2. Memory Panel Interactive Commands
Command Description
M Sort resource pools or virtual machines by MEMSZ column. This is the default sort order.
B Sort resource pools or virtual machines by Group Memctl column.
N Sort resource pools or virtual machines by GID column.
V Display virtual machine instances only.
L Changes the displayed length of the NAME column.