Memory Usage on SQL2k

We have a SQL Server Enterprise edition cluster.
The server has 2.5GB of RAM and SQL Server has Max Server Memory set to 2GB.
However, the Task Manager indicates that SQL Server is only using about 1750MB
There's no question in my mind that this server's load is such that it should
use every ounce of RAM.
Do I need to set the /3GB switch?I think this /3 switch will be ignored since your OS is not running with the Windows extended memory switch (AWE) with 3+ gig physical memory. ie... the sql mem manager is dependent on OS mem allocation on startup
This apparent margin of RAM that appears to not be utilized by sql could still be possibly or potentially utilized under certain load conditions that you have yet to observe from the perspective of task manager. SS memory management certainly does have a "mind" of it's own...|||The behavior you show is as expected. Your using TASK Manager to view
memory and that is not always accurate with sql server. Use the sql memory
counters in perfmon instead. By default any application (SQL Server is an
application) can use up to 2GB of memory and the OS can use up to 2GB. You
have 2.5GB of which SQL Server will use up to 2GB. There are different
parts of sql server that use different parts of the available memory. When
SQL Server starts up it will reserve by default 256MB of memory for what is
called Memory to Leave. This is where the memory for among several other
things the worker threads are spawned. This comes right off the top of the
2GB and the rest is left for the memory pool which will dynamically use the
rest up to 2GB. So 2GB - 256MB is approx. 1.75GB and what you are seeing.
This is normal. The OS can use the other .5GB for it's use and any other
apps that you may need to run on the server. You could use the /3GB switch
to allow sql server to use up to 3GB (if you had that much) but in your case
you would starve the OS and paging would occur. Unless you add more ram I
wouldn't touch what you have.
--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
<bb_43@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:v5Ndc.50141$dF7.24237@.newssvr25.news.prodigy.com...
> We have a SQL Server Enterprise edition cluster.
> The server has 2.5GB of RAM and SQL Server has Max Server Memory set to
2GB.
> However, the Task Manager indicates that SQL Server is only using about
1750MB
> There's no question in my mind that this server's load is such that it
should
> use every ounce of RAM.
> Do I need to set the /3GB switch?|||The other answers are great. I wouldn't to stress what Andrew pointed out...
regardless of whether you can or not.. use the switch in this case...
you would ALWAYS want to allow the OS to have a reasonable amount of space
for memory .5G on a 2.5 G big is really a min IMHO. Many people starve the
OS without ever realizing it... For example... on a 4G box.. you would
really want to give the OS ~1G.
--
Brian Moran
Principal Mentor
Solid Quality Learning
SQL Server MVP
http://www.solidqualitylearning.com
<bb_43@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:v5Ndc.50141$dF7.24237@.newssvr25.news.prodigy.com...
> We have a SQL Server Enterprise edition cluster.
> The server has 2.5GB of RAM and SQL Server has Max Server Memory set to
2GB.
> However, the Task Manager indicates that SQL Server is only using about
1750MB
> There's no question in my mind that this server's load is such that it
should
> use every ounce of RAM.
> Do I need to set the /3GB switch?