SQL Server 64 bit

  • I've been doing alot of research on this lately since we are bout to move our production db servers to 64 bit. I honestly can't find any real good articles about SQL 2005 64 bit Pros and Cons.

    Current Environment (Production)

    Windows Server 2003 EE 32 bit

    SQL Server 2005 EE 32 bit

    Moving to:

    Windows Server 2008 EE 64 bit

    SQL Server 2005 EE 64 bit

    Are there any Major difference's between 32 bit and 64 that might cause future head aches?

  • Pro: SQL can use a lot of memory.

    Con: SQL can use a lot of memory.

    If you go 64 bit, make sure you set the max memory for SQL. What you set it to depends on the memory on the server. I prefer 1GB form the OS if the memory is less than 8GB, 2 GB is the total memory is 8-16 and 3 or 4 above that.

    If you have a lot of linked servers, you may have trouble finding 64-bit drivers.

    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
  • We have a quad quad with 128gb of ram 120 for sql and 8 gb for the o/s

  • wow, sounds like it should do the job!

    what disk config you going for?

    how many\large databases do you anticipate?

    how many user connections?

    how many instances?

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉

  • That's a huge machine. The largest I've ever played with was a 16 proc box with 64 GB 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
  • we have a 3tb oltp db and a few smaller ones roughly ranging from 100gb to 400gb

    we are using mount points for clustering due to the fact using file groups and running out of drive letters heh. We are using raid 10 and raid5

  • I just tested linked servers 32 bit to 64 and 64 to 32 bit and they work.

    DTSRun isn't support on a 64 bit platform according to a few blogs, but if that's the case they can be wrapped around an ssis package to excute the dts.

  • Scott Ohar (9/30/2008)


    DTSRun isn't support on a 64 bit platform according to a few blogs, but if that's the case they can be wrapped around an ssis package to excute the dts.

    It isn't supported. I'm not sure is the SSIS wrapper just calls DTSRun or not. It's worth testing.

    What my company did when we moved our largest app to an Itanium was to have a second 32 bit machine just to run the DTS packages on. It has the added effect of spreading the load out slightly, which also helped.

    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
  • We have a quad quad with 128gb of ram 120 for sql and 8 gb for the o/s

    And your asking if 32bit is still an option ? 😀 😀 😀 😀

    Wilfred
    The best things in life are the simple things

  • hehe not really, its more like we are moving to it regardless, I am just trying to find anything about 64 bit that isn't supported like it is in 32 bit.

  • Someone else mentioned drivers with respect to Linked Servers. I have run into that issue. The provider driver must be 64-bit for it to work with SQL 64-bit.

    The list of Linked Server providers on my 64-bit system is: ASsDSOObject, MSDAOSP, MSIDXS, MSOLAP, SQLNCLI, SQLOLEDB, SQLXMLOLEDB and SQLXMLOLEDB.4.0.

    Comparing to a 32-bit install, these are missing: DTSPackageDSO, Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0, MSDAORA, MSDASQL, MSDMine, SQLReplication.OLEDB, and VFPOLEDB. Some of these may have been after-the-fact installs (like VFPOLEDB).

    Haven't noticed any other issues. Hope this helps...

    Caine

  • Actually that does help out, Thanks

  • If you use linked servers to other systems like Oracle or IBM, you'll notice that about half of the drivers are missing on a 64-bit server. One in particular that we used a lot was "OLE DB for ODBC" but I believe it is now downloadable. Otherwise you'll just need to install the proper 64-bit OLE DB driver.

    Another issue we've had is linking between x64 SQL 2005 and x86 SQL 2000. One fix can be found in KB 906954. If you don't use these, then no worries 🙂

  • This probably isn't applicable for your situation since your box is likely to be a pure SQL server; but I'll throw it out there anyway.....

    We got our first 64-bit 2005 SQL Server to run an application provided by a vendor. This application needed to install a couple of Windows services on the SQL Server. The vendor's Installer package failed because it couldn't deal with 64-bit. We had to go back to a 32-bit platform to get things running.

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