# What is actual?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-actual/36548>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Created:** [December 7, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-actual/36548 "2015-12-07T15:32:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![michaellizhou](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/michaellizhou/32/4143_2.png) [@michaellizhou](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/michaellizhou)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-actual/36548/1 "2015-12-07T15:32:52Z")

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there are lots of fields that are labeled with actual! What is the difference?

mem.actual\_used?

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**Author:** ![tudor](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/tudor/32/3753_2.png) [@tudor](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tudor)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-actual/36548/2 "2015-12-07T16:35:20Z")

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From what I know "actual" means the "used" memory minus the memory used for disk caches and buffers. We could do a better job here with the docs, true.

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**Author:** ![michaellizhou](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/michaellizhou/32/4143_2.png) [@michaellizhou](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/michaellizhou)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-actual/36548/3 "2015-12-07T20:12:47Z")

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That is what I come to believe also thanks for the reinforcement.

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**Author:** ![monica](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/monica/32/3696_2.png) [@monica](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/monica)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-actual/36548/4 "2015-12-07T20:47:36Z")

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Thanks for the feedback. I created already a PR to fix it: [https://github.com/elastic/beats/pull/466](https://github.com/elastic/beats/pull/466)

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 9:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-actual/36548/5 "2017-07-05T21:57:39Z")

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