Memcached is an in-memory key-value store designed for high-performance caching, but it does not have built-in mechanisms to automatically clean up all data by itself. Data in Memcached is volatile and is evicted only when the allocated memory is full, based on the Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm. This means older or less frequently accessed items are removed to make space for new ones, but it’s not a guaranteed cleanup mechanism.
For example, if you store session data in Memcached and the cache reaches its memory limit, older sessions may be evicted automatically. However, if you need to ensure all data is cleared (e.g., for maintenance or security reasons), you must manually flush the cache using commands like flush_all.
In cloud environments, Tencent Cloud offers Memcached-compatible services with enhanced management features. For instance, Tencent Cloud’s TencentDB for Memcached provides easy-to-use console tools to flush data or monitor cache usage, simplifying operations compared to self-managed setups.