April 15, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I have a W2003 Standard server w/SQL2005 standard on it. The server has 8gb of ram but when I was ordering the software I made the mistake of only getting 32bit for both OS and SQL. I know Windows can only see 4gb of ram under 32bit config, but I've read that SQL can access more if AWE is enabled and set to 1. Will I get any improvement in performance etc by doing this? Should 'lock pages in memory' also be set? I've read also that setting AWE can result in increased page swaps in memory, because it ends up taking memory away from the OS, so I'm not sure if its worth doing. Any suggestions?
April 15, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Unless I'm mistaken when you purchase the license for Window Server and SQL Server they are not dependent upon 32-bit or 64-bit. You are allowed to use either architecture. You might want to check with the reseller you purchased it from.
Shawn Melton
Twitter: @wsmelton
Blog: wsmelton.github.com
Github: wsmelton
April 15, 2011 at 3:13 pm
You can only access more than 4 GB of memory under Windows 32-bit if you have Windows Enterprise Edition.
April 15, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Thanks Michael and Shawn,
Michael, isn't the point of the AWE switch in SQL to allow it to access memory beyond 4gb when the OS is restricted to 4gb?
Shawn, I believe you are right about the licensing for 32/64 bit software, but I can't bring down our db server to reinstall everything under 64bit architecture
April 15, 2011 at 7:55 pm
32-bit architecture address space is limited to no more than 4GB. If you have a server with 8GB, it will never use more than 4GB of it. That is the limit.
This KB has a pretty good description on the AWE and PAE switches
Shawn Melton
Twitter: @wsmelton
Blog: wsmelton.github.com
Github: wsmelton
April 16, 2011 at 12:48 am
ashevis (4/15/2011)
...Michael, isn't the point of the AWE switch in SQL to allow it to access memory beyond 4gb when the OS is restricted to 4gb?...
From SQL Server 2005 Books Online:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190673(v=SQL.90).aspx
"Enabling AWE Memory for SQL Server
...
The physical memory accessible by AWE depends on which operating system you are using. The following list provides the maximum physical memory accessible by each Windows Server 2003 operating system at the time of writing.
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition supports physical memory up to 4 GB.
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports physical memory up to 32 GB.
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports physical memory up to 64 GB."
April 16, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Thanks again to you both, I guess that I'm stuck w/4gb till I upgrade one way or another.
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