intermediate · resources

Fifty Megabytes an Hour

Memory grows about 50 MB per hour under stable traffic, and the process restarts every day or two. How do you investigate?

Practical scenario

A Node service restarts on its memory limit every 30–40 hours. Traffic is flat across the week. Latency degrades noticeably in the hours before each restart.

What it tests

  • Whether the candidate separates a leak from legitimate growth
  • Knowledge of heap comparison as the method
  • Awareness that an unbounded cache fails like a leak

Lessons behind this question