Please start any new threads on our new site at https://forums.sqlteam.com. We've got lots of great SQL Server experts to answer whatever question you can come up with.

 All Forums
 SQL Server 2005 Forums
 SQL Server Administration (2005)
 SQL Server Memory not growing more than 1.7 GB

Author  Topic 

vijayakumar_svk
Yak Posting Veteran

50 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 15:12:30
Hi,

We have a production DB server which has 20 production databases. All the DBs will be accessed froma single web application.

We have 32 GB of RAM on the DB server but the SQL server memory usage is not going beyond 1.7 GB even at peak time (CPU usage is going high)

Here is the memory config on the server

Use of AWE to allocate memory - Not checked
Minimum sever memory - 0 KB
Maximum server memory - 2147483647 MB
Index creation memory - 0
Minimum memory per query - 1024 KB

We have SQL Server Enterprise edition SP2 running on WIndows 2003 64 bit OS.

Any idea on why the memory is nor growing. What is the best memory configuration to get good performance.

We are experiencing the performance issues on production.

I would appriciate for any help.

Thanks
Vijay


==============================
Work smarter not harder take control of your life be a super achiever

tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess

38200 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 15:24:06
What does the buffer cache hit ratio show and also page life expectancy? How big are the databases?

Has "lock pages in memory" privilege been added to the SQL Server service account?

Tara Kizer
Microsoft MVP for Windows Server System - SQL Server
http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/

Subscribe to my blog
Go to Top of Page

vijayakumar_svk
Yak Posting Veteran

50 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 15:40:45
I will watch perforn and get the details.

DB size goes from 300MB to 10 GB

Can I know where to check lock pages in memory is added to the SQL server account?

Thanks for your help
Vijay

==============================
Work smarter not harder take control of your life be a super achiever
Go to Top of Page

vijayakumar_svk
Yak Posting Veteran

50 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 15:44:39
buffer cache hit ratio - 1.000
page life expectancy - 0.10000000

==============================
Work smarter not harder take control of your life be a super achiever
Go to Top of Page

tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess

38200 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 15:59:03
How to: Enable the Lock Pages in Memory Option (Windows)

It should be done on the SQL Server service account.

Tara Kizer
Microsoft MVP for Windows Server System - SQL Server
http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/

Subscribe to my blog
Go to Top of Page

GilaMonster
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

4507 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 17:16:20
You said it's running on a 64 bit OS. Is SQL itself 32 bit or 64 bit?

SELECT @@Version

--
Gail Shaw
SQL Server MVP
Go to Top of Page

vijayakumar_svk
Yak Posting Veteran

50 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 22:37:50
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.3042.00 (Intel X86)
Feb 9 2007 22:47:07
Copyright (c) 1988-2005 Microsoft Corporation
Enterprise Edition on Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 2)

==============================
Work smarter not harder take control of your life be a super achiever
Go to Top of Page

tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess

38200 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-20 : 22:54:22
Looks like you're going to need to plan moving to 64-bit SQL Server 2005.

Tara Kizer
Microsoft MVP for Windows Server System - SQL Server
http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/

Subscribe to my blog
Go to Top of Page

GilaMonster
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

4507 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-21 : 01:23:45
SQL's 32 bit. Unless you have AWE enabled, even running on a 64 bit machine, it won't be able to use more than, I think, 4 GB. Is AWE enabled?

--
Gail Shaw
SQL Server MVP
Go to Top of Page

vijayakumar_svk
Yak Posting Veteran

50 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-21 : 05:42:48
AWE is not enabled. I read in a article that enabling AWE in a 64buit operating system will not make any differnce. Please correct me if I am wrong.

==============================
Work smarter not harder take control of your life be a super achiever
Go to Top of Page

GilaMonster
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

4507 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-21 : 06:28:45
Enabling AWE on 64-bit SQL will not make any difference, you do however need it for 32-bit SQL running on a 64-bit operating system, otherwise SQL is limited to the max addressable memory of a 32-bit process, which is 4 GB.

--
Gail Shaw
SQL Server MVP
Go to Top of Page

sodeep
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

7174 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-21 : 17:40:55
why 32-bit SQL Server in 64-bit OS?
Go to Top of Page

donpolix
Yak Posting Veteran

97 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-22 : 03:50:48
You must enable AWE to use more than 4GB of ram since it's still a 32 bit app (sql on wow64). Use perfmon sql server memory manager to see total server memory.

Donn Policarpio
Go to Top of Page

sodeep
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

7174 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-23 : 12:04:35
As Tara Said: You will have to enable Lock pages in Memory . Simply enabling AWE won't work. Try to find the maintenance windows and try installing 64-bit(enterprise) Edition and restore all databases so you can have full utilizations of 64-bit.
Go to Top of Page

vijayakumar_svk
Yak Posting Veteran

50 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-25 : 11:55:42
I appolozie that the OS is 32 bit only..

==============================
Work smarter not harder take control of your life be a super achiever
Go to Top of Page

GilaMonster
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

4507 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-25 : 13:44:11
Well, that would explain the 1.7GB. That's about all a 32 bit app can use on a 32 bit OS.

Same thing, you just need to add /3GB to the boot.ini as well.

--
Gail Shaw
SQL Server MVP
Go to Top of Page

vijayakumar_svk
Yak Posting Veteran

50 Posts

Posted - 2010-05-26 : 05:05:40
I have 32 GB physical memory on that server. Can I enable AWE and add the administrator user into "Lock pages in memory" to utilize the maximum memory.

Also I have configured Min memory as 4 GB and max memory as 15 GB.

Do we need to restart the server to take this effect?

==============================
Work smarter not harder take control of your life be a super achiever
Go to Top of Page
   

- Advertisement -