SQl 2005 uses all the memomy, is it bad?

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SQl 2005 uses all the memomy, is it bad?

H. Nosrati

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Points: 24
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December 9, 2008 at 2:03 am

#203887

Hi, We just upgraded to sql 2005 64bit installed on a windows 2008 server, 64 bit.
All files are on a SAN with the data on RAID 10 and log and temp files are each on a raid 1.
We also have 3 webservers (loadbalanced) that uses this DB-server to view the webpages since we have a lot of traffic.
So far so good and the webpages are really fast so no problems there. But the SQL 2005 is using all of the 16 GB of RAM available.
I've been reading other posts here but I'm not sure that this is a problem?
The server does nothing else exept hosting the DB. Should I worry and set a maximum memory usage or should I just let everything be like it is now?
It this good or bad?
thanks in advance!
\H

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Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004514 More actions · Answer 1

You should always set a max memory on a 64-bit server. I have known SQL to starve the OS.

With 16 GB memory, set SQL's max to 14.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

H. Nosrati Grasshopper Points: 24 More actions · Answer 2

The SQl is standard edition. Does it make any difference?

Thank you for you time!

\H

Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004514 More actions · Answer 3

H. Nosrati (12/9/2008)
The SQl is standard edition. Does it make any difference?

No.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Chris Harshman SSC-Forever Points: 42192 More actions · Answer 4

I agree, you want to set the maximum memory for SQL Server. Giving the OS 2 gig (even though this server is only a database server) will help ensure that you aren't doing too many OS virtual memory page swaps. You want to keep those to a minimum, because they will create 2 extra disk I/O operations, but SQL Server will still believe that it's using pages cached in RAM. SQL Server can manage its own memory better because it knows which pages are dirty vs. already saved to disk and can just deallocate that memory from its data cache instead of forcing an extra write to disk that OS virtual memory does.