RAM Requirements sql server 2005

[jpotucek]

I have a 32 bit Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition Server with one quad core processor 2.83ghz and the box has 3.25 GB of RAM.

Is this adequate to run one default and two Named Instances of SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition (patched to SP3) ??

If additional memory is recommended, what kind of parameters would have to be changed or what kind of tuning would ahve to take place in order to take advantage of the additional memory?

 

[mrdenny]

That's pretty light for 3 instances of SQL Server. You've got 1 Gig for the OS, which leaves 2.25 Gigs for SQL to use. Best case that's about .75 Gigs per instance. Hopefully your databases are very small and don't require a lot of buffer cache.

You can add more RAM to the server to and use the /PAE and /3GB switches then enable AWE within the SQL Server to increase the size of the buffer cache. But you will be pretty limited on the size of the procedure cache on each instance as the procedure cache must reside within the first 2 Gigs of memory.

Denny
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