Post reply

8GB RAM and SQL Server

  • June 5, 2006 at 7:32 am

    #168542

    I am increasing the RAM on my windows 2003 enterprise edition server from 4GB to 8GB. According to what I have read so far I am going to enable AWE and allow SQL Server to use 6GB and will leave 2GB for Windows.

    I am going to take following steps to accomplish this task

    1) add /PAE switch in boot.ini file

    2) run following commands in SQL Server Query Analyzer

    sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1

    RECONFIGURE

    GO

    sp_configure 'awe enabled', 1

    RECONFIGURE

    GO

    sp_configure 'max server memory', 6144

    RECONFIGURE

    GO

    Is there anything else that I should add to my list of steps? Also do I need to reboot the server or only restarting SQL Server service is good enough. FYI SQL Server is on a 4 node cluster.

    Thanks

  • June 5, 2006 at 7:43 am

    #641666

    You need to reboot the server if you are modifying boot.ini.  Don't forget to change boot.ini on all cluster nodes.  I assume you are increasing memory on all cluster nodes?

    Also, if your cluster has more than one virtual SQL Server on it and there is a possibility that they will run on the same node at any time, you will want to think carefully about memory requirements, since SQL Server doesn't manage memory dynamically with AWE.

    John

  • June 5, 2006 at 7:50 am

    #641672

    We only have one SQL Server instance on this cluster. My research suggests that 40-60% of resources should be left out for windows. However in this case its 25%.

  • June 5, 2006 at 10:03 am

    #641770

    If you have a dedicated SQL Server then you might want to monitor with a view to increasing the memory given to sql server.

    There's absolutely no point in leaving memory free for the o/s if it doesn't need it. It's like buying a V8 and then only using 6 cylinders. Other than wasting your money leaving excessive free memory is a waste. I'd go for at least 7Gb to sql server and monitor to see what happens, after all std sql runs quite happily on 2gb ram using it's normal 1.6gb - I never figure when people add more memory they suddenly leave loads of it unused.

    [font="Comic Sans MS"]The GrumpyOldDBA[/font]
    www.grumpyolddba.co.uk
    http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/

  • June 6, 2006 at 9:55 am

    #642062

    I set my 8gb Win2003 server to 8192 max setting.

    Using task manager, it keeps about 200-300mb available.

    Sql server EXE uses about 98mb instead of the 1.6gb.

    The extra memory is allocated to the paging file (PF) virtual memory area to be used by sql server buffer pools.

    Robert Hill.

  • June 6, 2006 at 10:08 am

    #642072

    is there a way to backout these changes and disable AWE so that SQL Server goes back to 2 GB memory limit and dynamic allocation?

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply