How to discover why memory usage is so high?

  • I'm pretty positive our server is using an excessive amount of memory but I'm not sure exactly how to find out what is causing it.....

    I haven't been able to find anything that indicates how to narrow down the search.....

    I read through

    http://www.sql-server-performance.com/tips/performance_monitor_memory_counter_p1.aspx

    And what I found is that

    The average Page/Sec right now seems to sometimes be at 0 but for some blocks of times it hovers around 1,000

    The target memory and Total memory are usually equal ... The target is sometimes about 10 MB's or so higher

    Totals server memory is at like 15 GIGS which seems a little crazy

    The CPU use never gets out of control it maxes out at around 40 but usually hovers in the lower numbers...

    Maybe I'm just overreacting 🙂 Not sure but that seems like an excessive amount of system resources...

    thoughts?

  • I stand to be corrected on the following, but I believe the maximum memory amount on your server settings should be about 2 Gigs less than the total memory on the server(2G for the OS - Obviously this is only if SQL is the only app running on the machine).

    We have some machines here that are using up to 100 Gigs of RAM without issues. You should'nt be concerned if SQL has allocated the amount of memory you have specified in the maximum server memory settings.

    If its using more than that(which I've never heard of) then you could have a problem. Remember SQL allocates the memory when it needs it up until it reaches the maximum(that you've specified), it will then de-allocate the memory that it doesn't need down to the minimum memory setting.

    I think that the minimum and maximum server memory settings should be the same. If SQL is the only app on the server, then let it have all the memory anyway!

    As I said upfront "I stand to be corrected" 😀

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