as per the docs,
"If using --vfs-cache-max-size note that the cache may exceed this size for two reasons. Firstly because it is only checked every --vfs-cache-poll-interval. Secondly because open files cannot be evicted from the cache."
note:
rclone uses sparse files for the cache, assuming the underlying file system suppprts it.
on windows, ntfs and refs.
for example, i often have large zip files in the clould, 10GB+
if i need to extract a single file, then rclone will download just the chunks needed, not the entire 10GB+ file.
compare size on disk to size