• OK, AWE is disabled (the default) so the largest your SQL Server buffer pool will ever see is somewhere between 1.5GB and 1.6GB. This is due to the 2GB limit on the user-mode VAS imposed by 32-bit versions of Windows minus some process and environment overhead that prevents SQL Server from being able to use all 2GB. Your screenshot shows that your buffer pool target is 1.55GB which is consistent with what I would expect.

    Essentially what this means is that setting your max memory to 3GB is not going to help much since it can never rise above ~1.6GB due to those external limitations. Having a min server memory setting of 2GB could actually be detrimental to the system because it guarantees that SQL Server will never release memory it has claimed even if the system is under duress and that can cause some bad side-effects. You have a few long-term options here which I'll go into later, but for the near term I would recommend setting min server memory back to its default of 0. Like I said, the max server memory setting is not as important in your current scenario so you could safely leave it 3GB or possibly lower it as low as 1.6GB.

    If you are having memory pressure issues you could look into adding the /3GB switch to your boot.ini, or you could look at enabling AWE. The former option will allow SQL Server to access up to 3GB of user-mode VAS, an increase of 1GB from what you have today, but that takes 1GB away from the Windows kernel so its a tradeoff. With a box dedicated to running SQL Server adding the 3GB switch is usually a pretty safe option and I have used it many times in the past. The other option is to skip adding the /3GB switch and enable AWE. Enabling AWE would allow SQL Server to access up to all 4GB of physical memory so in this scenario it is hyper-critical that you set max server memory conservatively, e.g. at 2.5GB to begin with) and then watch the available RAM on the server to make sure SQL Server is not starving Windows. Then you could slowly increase max server memory a bit at a time and continue monitoring.

    Please read Chapter 4 of that book and post back if you have more questions.

    There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
    --Plato