Memory requirements for MSSQL 2005

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Memory requirements for MSSQL 2005

Bill Wagman

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April 10, 2007 at 2:13 pm

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Greetings,
We are looking at purchasing 2 new servers as part of our upgrade to MSSQL 2005. The question we are wondering about now is memory requirements. Is 2GB sufficient or would we be better served by going to 4GB. We will be running Enterprise Edition, on 32-bit O/S, most likely Windows Wnterprise Server 2003. I'm interested in any experiences and feedback.
Thanks.

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Bramha SSC Veteran Points: 201 More actions · Answer 1

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/editions/enterprise/sysreqs.mspx

Moreno-84941 Hall of Fame Points: 3258 More actions · Answer 2

Consider also the load on your system to decided the amount of memory needed.

You may find useful informations on

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190673.aspx

Bulent Gucuk SSCertifiable Points: 5498 More actions · Answer 3

As always go with the more memory. SQL server 2005's memory limitation based on the OS it's running on. So if you will use Windows Server 2003 Ent. which does not have memory limitation, I would say do some test and capacity planning and go with 4 GB memory since you will see the benefits of having more memory resulting bigger proc cache and data cache.

Good day...

Bulent

Erwin Dockx SSC Eights! Points: 852 More actions · Answer 4

In case of the 32bit environment, you will natively be limited to 4GB memory usage, of which your OS will need some as well.

If possible, go for a 64bit system, as it will keep your options open for future memory upgrades and provide native support for 2 Terabyte of RAM with the Windows Server Enterprise Edition.

As to the amount of memory: more is better of course, but the (future) size of your database(s) will play a big part in planning that. It's best, from a performance point of view, to be able to fit your data into memory. Otherwise it will need te be moved in and out of the disk cache, which could hurt performance.

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alen teplitsky SSC-Dedicated Points: 30014 More actions · Answer 5

buy as much as you can get. we set up a new distributor a few months back and had to upgrade to 4GB. called MS on an issue and if you tell them less than 4GB they say it's too little

Bill Wagman SSCommitted Points: 1763 More actions · Answer 6

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I requested 4GB of memory.

Eric Peterson Hall of Fame Points: 3192 More actions · Answer 7

One other thing to remember is have the machine ordered with a large enough C drive. Our standard configuration was a tiny C drive and spending the cash on the database drives.....

The installation ( and it cannot be changed until later ) does not allow installation to any drive besides the C drive and by default the Temp DB, master, MSDB and Model are installed there as well. You will need at several GIG free to do the installation of all of the stuff.