How do I determine the correct “max-old-space-size” for node.js?

Question

I\'m having some trouble to understand how Node.js acts based on the parameter max-old-space-size.

In my case, for example, I\'m running two t2.sma

Answer 1

2020 Update

These options are now documented officially by node. For a 2GB machine, you should probably use:

NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=1536

To determine the amount to use: You can see available memory on a Linux machine using free -m. Note that you can use the free and the buffers/cache memory combined, as buffers/cache can be thrown away (these buffers and cache are a nice way to use otherwise unused memory).

Note the official documentation formax-old-space-size also mentions:

On a machine with 2GB of memory, consider setting this to 1536 (1.5GB)

Hence the value above. Consider that the amount of memory needed for the base OS doesn't change much, so you could happily do 3.5 on a 4GB machine etc.

Answer 2

"Old space" is the biggest and most configurable section of V8's managed (aka garbage-collected) heap (i.e. where the JavaScript objects live), and the --max-old-space-size flag controls its maximum size. As memory consumption approaches the limit, V8 will spend more time on garbage collection in an effort to free unused memory.

If heap memory consumption (i.e. live objects that the GC cannot free) exceeds the limit, V8 will crash your process (for lack of alternative), so you don't want to set it too low. Of course, if you set it too high, then the additional heap usage that V8 will allow might cause your overall system to run out of memory (and either swap or kill random processes, for lack of alternative).

In summary, on a machine with 2GB of memory I would probably set --max-old-space-size to about 1.5GB to leave some memory for other uses and avoid swapping.

Answer 3

If you just want to make it work from the project you are working on, Follow the two steps:

1. In your project cd to node_module/@angular cd node_module/@angular

2. Now run the below command export NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=8192

Answer 4

This error occurs when the memory allocated for the executing application is less than the required memory. By default, the memory limit in Node.js is 512 MB. To increase this amount, you need to set the memory limit argument —-max-old-space-size. It will help avoid a memory limit issue.

node --max-old-space-size=1024 index.js #increase to 1gb
node --max-old-space-size=2048 index.js #increase to 2gb
node --max-old-space-size=3072 index.js #increase to 3gb
node --max-old-space-size=4096 index.js #increase to 4gb
node --max-old-space-size=5120 index.js #increase to 5gb
node --max-old-space-size=6144 index.js #increase to 6gb
node --max-old-space-size=7168 index.js #increase to 7gb
node --max-old-space-size=8192 index.js #increase to 8gb

https://medium.com/@vuongtran/how-to-solve-process-out-of-memory-in-node-js-5f0de8f8464c