June 14, 2011 at 11:27 am
If I'm running perfmon to examine memory use, how much is being used by perfmon and does it become a problem if left running for a long time?
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When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
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June 14, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Perfmon is extremely lightweight if you're capturing the data out to a file other than the OS drive or on of the data or log drives for the database. If you're running the gui, it can cause some load. Also, if you gather a lot of performance metrics at a very high refresh rate, you may see an issue. But in general, collecting 30 or 40 counters that you refresh once a minute or less, you shouldn't have any issues with it at all.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
June 14, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Grant Fritchey (6/14/2011)
Perfmon is extremely lightweight if you're capturing the data out to a file other than the OS drive or on of the data or log drives for the database. If you're running the gui, it can cause some load. Also, if you gather a lot of performance metrics at a very high refresh rate, you may see an issue. But in general, collecting 30 or 40 counters that you refresh once a minute or less, you shouldn't have any issues with it at all.
Thanks. I thought that's what I remembered hearing about it, but the "lots of metrics at a high refresh rate" caused nagging doubts.
--------------------------------------
When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
--------------------------------------
It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams
June 14, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Stefan Krzywicki (6/14/2011)
Grant Fritchey (6/14/2011)
Perfmon is extremely lightweight if you're capturing the data out to a file other than the OS drive or on of the data or log drives for the database. If you're running the gui, it can cause some load. Also, if you gather a lot of performance metrics at a very high refresh rate, you may see an issue. But in general, collecting 30 or 40 counters that you refresh once a minute or less, you shouldn't have any issues with it at all.Thanks. I thought that's what I remembered hearing about it, but the "lots of metrics at a high refresh rate" caused nagging doubts.
If you think you might be going overboard, you probably are. Until then, you're safe.
I don't have hard & fast numbers. Back in 2000 I intentionally set out to break a server using Profiler (harder than you think, 28 instances did the trick). I haven't tried the same thing PerfMon. Maybe I should.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
June 14, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I have had PerfMon logging ~ 25 counters at 15 second intervals to a database table for days at a time and never had any issues. Pretty handy information when you need it. 🙂
David
@SQLTentmaker“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose” - Jim Elliot
June 14, 2011 at 12:54 pm
I was just looking at this yesterday on a beta server. I was running typeperf (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490960.aspx) w/ 15 metrics every 15 sec for 2 hours and output to a .csv file on a non-OS/data/log partition. The highest memory consumption I saw was 4-5 MB.
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- Nate
June 14, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Thanks everyone.
On reading these replies, I realized I posted in the wrong forum as I'm wondering about this on our 2000 instance. We're getting a lot of I/O and paging suddenly and I wanted to make sure Perfmon wasn't using up enough ram to lead to that.
--------------------------------------
When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
--------------------------------------
It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams
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