One example using fixed memory allocationnon a cluster and the two nodes do not have the same amount of memory. The A node has 4 gb and the B node has 2.5 gb. SQL server is a fixed allocation of 3 gb with the /3GB switch in the boot.ini. try failing over this cluster from A node to B node. This is not a test but an actual support situation that I ran into and had to fix. So YES, knowing how much memory SQL Serve uses on startup is a very relevant question in production support.