memory on server

I have an application that is used 85 % of the time by 25 % of the people in
the organization.
we have three servers, all having 2000 server and sql 2000 server the main
one is on SP2 and the two terminal servers have sp4
main server has 2048 meg of ram and ts1 has 3840 meg and ts2 has 2048 meg of
ram in it.
the main server utilization runs anywhere from 20% to 100%. I am purposing
adding another 2048 in the main server, is that enough?
Kevinkevins (kevins@.discussions.microsoft.com) writes:
> I have an application that is used 85 % of the time by 25 % of the
> people in the organization.
> we have three servers, all having 2000 server and sql 2000 server the
> main one is on SP2 and the two terminal servers have sp4 main server has
> 2048 meg of ram and ts1 has 3840 meg and ts2 has 2048 meg of ram in it.
> the main server utilization runs anywhere from 20% to 100%. I am
> purposing adding another 2048 in the main server, is that enough?
When it comes to memory for SQL Server, too much is not enough! :-)
Here is the deal: SQL Server loves cache. The more data it can hold in
cache, the less often it has to read from disk. Thus, once SQL Server
has maxed out on memory, it will stay there (unless there is pressure
from other applications.)
Thus, if you get another 2 GB of memory, you may see that SQL Server
till maxes out. This all depends on your databasees and your application.
If you have a 100 GB database of which all data is accessed at some
point during the day, you will have to access disk accesses. On the
other hand, if your only database is 2GB, those extra 2GB will not have
that much effect, as you already have the database in memory.
Note also that you need Enterprise Edition to be able to make use from
more than 2GB memory. There are also switches in Windows you need to set,
to able to use this memory.
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@.sommarskog.se
Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/productdoc/2000/books.asp