[squid-users] memory question and system performance

Hello All,

Enclosed is a chart mapping our squid 2-5.1 memory usage. The squid
memory continues to grow and grow. It appears that when squid is
shutdown and then restarted, memory returns to zero and then steadily
grows and grows. Memory will continue to grow until squid is shutdown
at some point.

We are using Redhat Linux OS. System has 1 gig of memory. Cache
Manager and top command show squid memory at 5%.
I've read squid faq 8.11 "How much memory do I need in my squid server?"
cache_dir ufs /d1/squid_cache 2048 16 256
/d1 resides on separate file system (18gig of disk, with 7 gig
available). Squid cache is configured to use 2 gig.
10 MB of ram per 2 GB of total cach_dirs would be 20MB
cache_mem 8 MB
Plus additional/extra 20MB does calculate to the 5% (50 meg) of the 1
gig of memory system contains. System appears to have enough memory.

Looking at chart enclosed, is it normal for squid memory usage to grow
and grow?
What causes this?

Furthermore - I'm also seeing slight delays on system. System has two
AMD Athlon(TM) MP 1800+ processors cpu MHz 1533.431. When system seems
delayed we run top and cpu's are not even at 50%, memory looks fine.
The only thing we've noticed is load average increases from 0.85% to
5%. I've always kept default of cache_dir ufs, do I need to configure
aufs or other? I'm not even sure if squid is cause of random system
slow/delay moments.
Any ideas/suggestions much appreciated. Thank you!