• shaun.stuart (12/7/2011)


    On other thing the OP may want to consider is enabling trace flag 834. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920093. This flag requires Enterprise edition and the Lock Pages In Memory permission. The flag lets SQL use large memory pages instead of Windows normal 4k pages.

    I would strongly recommend not doing that. It's something that was documented because it was used in a TPC benchmark. It prevents dynamic sizing of the buffer pool and it requires that the memory for the buffer pool be physically contiguous, if it's not then the amount of memory allocated could be much lower than max server memory. It can also significantly slow down SQL's startup

    http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psssql/archive/2009/06/05/sql-server-and-large-pages-explained.aspx

    Large page for the buffer pool is definitely not for everyone. You should only do this for a machine dedicated to SQL Server (and I mean dedicated) and only with careful consideration of settings like ‘‘max server memory’. Furthermore, you should test out the usage of this functionality to see if you get any measureable performance gains before using it in production.

    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

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