Mem. usage

[wolfert]

Hello,

I have a SQL server (2k) up and running (win 2k adv. server as OS). The problem is that the sqlsvr.exe's memory usage is increasing by the hour.
In two weeks time, the program is using 1,6 GB of internal memory.
Once I reboot the server (or restart the service), the mem. usage is just a minur 15 Mb. (Did it this morning). Now (7 hours later), it has already grown to 71 MB.

Thanks in advance,
Patrick.

 

[NoCoolHandle]

OK, just quickly.

SQL SErver will continuously cache as much data in ram as possilble. If your server has lots of ram, and no other processes are using it, SQL will just grab and aquire ram until it hits the Ram wall.

The reason is that if your data was used reciently it might be needed again, and if it is on disk,it WILL take longer to retrieve it than if it is in ram.

So why throw away something that could help... No one needs the resource, so it just keeps it.

If for some reason you want to stop SQL server from doing it's job well, you can. In Ent Mgr right click your server and select properties, in the Memory section set an upper limit. Then sit back and enjoy any performance problmes that might cause.

HTH


Rob

PS if the ram isn't being used why flush it! I purposfully fill ram with a 500mb table so querys run in less than 1ms to retrieve 1 record randomly from a 24,000,000 table.

 

[SQLSister]

SQL Server will normally use all the memory it needs and it generally doesn't give any back. So the behavior you see is both normal and by design. Unless your system is running poorly, you don't really have a problem. Trying to restrict the memory use will usually cause problems. This is why you shouldn't run any other programs on the same server.

 

[wolfert]

Thanks both for your help.

It isn't really a problem because SQL is the only thing running on that server. So memory is available for SQL.

I discovered I could not install a new virusscanner on the server because the setup ran out of mem. I looked at the task manager and discovered that sql is comsuming a lot of mem. So i thought I had a memory leakage.

Thanks again,

Patrick.