Resource Usage

Parca retains profile samples in memory and rotates the in-memory block out when it reaches a certain size in bytes based on configuration settings.

Recommended resources

We recommend a rule of thumb of 60 bytes of memory for each sample. By default the Parca-Agent profiles each core at 19Hz, which means you can expect Parca to require 60 bytes 19 number of cores. So if you were profiling a 100 cores at a time you'd expect Parca to ingest 114Kb/s.

Flags to adjust the active memory footprint

Flag	Usage
--storage-granule-size	By increasing the granule size you'll decrease nominal memory footprint but increase memory usage during compaction.
--storage-active-memory	Adjust the number of bytes held in memory before being rotated out. This is the easiest way to adjust Parca's memory footprint.
--storage-row-group-size	Smaller row groups increase memory footprint but increase query speed. Increasing row group size results in lower memory usage but slower queries.