PLE

  • Page life expectancy drops frequently with a value less than 300 secs. Does it mean that memory needs to be increased?

    Thanks

  • It depends. The 300 number is not a hard threshold and in my experience, on most systems you'll be well above that the majority of the time. Some things that I'd look at:

    What is the normal value for this?

    What is happening at the time the it drops to its lowest level?

    What's your buffer cache hit ratio? Is it dropping as well?

    Are you seeing an increase in disk activity at this time as well?

  • It depends. The 300 number is not a hard threshold and in my experience, on most systems you'll be well above that the majority of the time. Some things that I'd look at:

    What is the normal value for this?

    for every one hour below is the values for PLE

    115

    174

    257

    205

    148

    103

    202

    131

    What is happening at the time the it drops to its lowest level?

    Peak time....

    What's your buffer cache hit ratio? Is it dropping as well?

    Buffer cache hit ration is above 99%

    Are you seeing an increase in disk activity at this time as well?

    No disk activity...

  • It looks like you are experiencing memory pressure as you are consistently seeing low PLE values. You should read, http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Memory/74867/ as it gives a decent outline of how to check memory issues.

  • Actually server is 2005 32 bit enterprise and Windows server is 2003 SP2 enterprise(my understanding is 32 bit enterprise will take max memory of OS without need to enable AWE?).

    Memory is assigned to use is 4GB and Host memory is 16GB. Can i increase the SQL memory to 6GB to resolve the PLE issue?

  • Admingod (3/6/2012)


    (my understanding is 32 bit enterprise will take max memory of OS without need to enable AWE?).

    Without AWE enabled 32 bit SQL (regardless of edition) can use no more than 1.7GB of memory.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • So i need to enable AWE to user more than 1.7GB?

  • Yes, that or upgrade to 64-bit SQL

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Admingod (3/6/2012)


    Actually server is 2005 32 bit enterprise and Windows server is 2003 SP2 enterprise(my understanding is 32 bit enterprise will take max memory of OS without need to enable AWE?).

    Memory is assigned to use is 4GB and Host memory is 16GB. Can i increase the SQL memory to 6GB to resolve the PLE issue?

    What is there in boot.ini file ? Paste the complete contents.

    Is /PAE switch present there ?

    We had the same problem on win 2003 enterprise 32bit where the PTE's where constantly dropping and the server was completely halted.

    Refer to below links for a good explanation of how /PAE works:

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc736309(WS.10).aspx

    http://blogs.technet.com/b/clint_huffman/archive/2008/04/07/free-system-page-table-entries-ptes.aspx

    ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    HTH !
    Kin
    MCTS : 2005, 2008
    Active SQL Server Community Contributor 🙂

  • Admingod (3/6/2012)


    Actually server is 2005 32 bit enterprise and Windows server is 2003 SP2 enterprise(my understanding is 32 bit enterprise will take max memory of OS without need to enable AWE?).

    Memory is assigned to use is 4GB and Host memory is 16GB. Can i increase the SQL memory to 6GB to resolve the PLE issue?

    What is there in boot.ini file ? Paste the complete contents.

    Is /PAE switch present there ?

    We had the same problem on win 2003 enterprise 32bit where the PTE's where constantly dropping and the server was completely halted.

    Refer to below links for a good explanation of how /PAE works:

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc736309(WS.10).aspx

    http://blogs.technet.com/b/clint_huffman/archive/2008/04/07/free-system-page-table-entries-ptes.aspx

    ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    HTH !
    Kin
    MCTS : 2005, 2008
    Active SQL Server Community Contributor 🙂

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