Memory is not Utilized by SQL Server

  • We use SQL Server 2000 Developer and Enterprise editions on Windows 2000 servers. We have servers with 3.6 GB and 4 GB of memory. We set SQL Server to dinamically allocate memory and to grab as much of it as it can.

    After such server is restarted, its memory usage grows over time up to the point when it is utilizing a little more than 20% of available memory. However it never attempts to use more. Why? I was ready about AWE situation but we have only up to 4 GB of physical memory available so AWE is not the case here.

    Thanks for any help.

    Michael Romm

  • SQL Server only takes the memory when it needs to. Hence when you restart it, it slowly takes more. If it hasn't used the memory it hasn't needed to use that much yet.

    Depending on your OS (NT enterprise or 2000 Advanced server) you can make more memory available to sql by using the /3GB switch in the boot .ini file.

    From BOL

    If you specify a /3GB switch in the Boot.ini file of Windows NT Enterprise Edition or Windows 2000 Advanced Server, the operating system reserves only 1 GB of the address space, and the application can access up to 3 GB. For more information about the /3GB switch, see Windows NT Enterprise Edition or Windows 2000 Advanced Server Help.

    Steven

  • I tried to force the server to utilize more memory by creating a table variable and feeding it with the huge amount of data. It had no affect on the memory usage according to Task Manager. In the same time, a simple query sp_who from QA would complain "defailt filegroup is full".

  • Are your databases set to 'autoextend'? (espcially tempdb)

    Steven

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