is it possible to influence memory usage for sql server (and: is 1GB usage a lot?)

Question

i'm a developer and when i deploy our site to the prod server (with 3GB of ram) i always see the mssql proces using 1 GB of ram. We're at startup, so the database doesn't realy do a lot (sometimes no requests for 10 minutes).

Is the 1GB a lot at that moment? or does SqlServer have some kind of lowerbound memory usage?

Michel

Answer 1

1 GB isn't really all that much for MS Sql Server - our Sql 2005 cluster machine use 3 GB when generally quiet, and while we're not a startup, we don't have a particularly taxing db architecture.

3 GB physical RAM is not all that much for a SQL machine; our cluster machines have 32 GB of RAM and will use a great deal of that when under stress; Sql Server can make use of a great deal of physical memory in a transient fashion.

You can limit the memory usage. In Sql Server Management Studio, right-click on the server node and select Properties. Memory is the 2nd page, and you can set a minimum and maximum there. This is the same in Sql Server 2005 and Sql Server 2008. You'll need the serveradmin role or above to manage this setting, if I recall correctly.

Answer 2

it dosent sound like a lot to me. 3GB sounds fairly low for a database machine. Im not a DBA but as far as i know every database machine ive come into contact with was operating with 8gb +

I believe you can limit the memory sqlserver uses (here http://www.teratrax.com/articles/sp_configure_max_memory.html ) but i wouldnt do that if possible as it'll cause performance slowdowns.

Answer 3

• Yes, it is possibl. Check the server properties, you can set limits for SQL Server usage.

• SSQL Server by edefault uses as much memory as makes sense - for IO caching. It know servers using in excess of 64gb. Ultimately, it depends on the database you have.

• 1GB is not exactly a lot.