在有些时候buffer和cache这两个词经常混用。不过在一些比较低层的软件里是要区分这两个词的,看老外的洋文:
- A bufferis something that has yet to be "written" to disk.
- A cacheis something that has been "read" from the disk and stored for later use.
也就是说buffer是用于存放要输出到disk(块设备)的数据的,而cache是存放从disk上读出的数据。这二者是为了提高IO性能的,并由OS管理。