adam cassel (5/30/2008)
@ Mr. Perry32bit/x32 OS can not address more than 4GIG of RAM. Therefore, you can not assign 8gig of ram to a 32 bit guest VM. For additional detail re: how the USER MODE portion of the available RAM can be increased with caveats:
http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/23/memory-management-demystifying-3gb.aspx
I am aware of the /3GB and can't use it because that does not leave enough free PTEs for the backup software to run each night - my data volumes are all 300GB or more.
As for the statement about not being able to run 8GB in 32 bit, I have to disagree since I am currently doing that using AWE on all of my 32 bit SQL Servers. I have minmemory set to 2048 and maxmemory set to 6144 and my servers all take advantage of the 6GB available to them. As mentioned, this does require 32 bit enterprise edition of windows, which actually allows for 32GB of physical RAM.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179301.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190731.aspx
Joshua Perry
http://www.greenarrow.net