Server using 92% of Phys RAM out of 6GB... recommendations?

[mlchris2]

When I ordered my server hardware from Dell they recommended all I would need was 6GB... Well I've had the Exchange 2010 server in for about a month and noticed that with minimal load (I've only moved over 15 of our 30 users) the server is using 92% (5775MB out of 6144) of the installed 6GB...

I know its stupid to ask if I need more memory... that's pretty obvious. What I want to know is an upgrade to 8GB sufficient or should I look at upgrading to more.

I read in some article that Exchange will user as much memory you can throw at it... so will I see a 92% Phys Ram usage if I upgrade to 8GB?

Are there things I can do to tweak Exchange?

I am running Best Practice Analyzer (health check and baseline) as I post and will run Perfmon, to see if there are other issues other than just lack of memory.

appreciate your recommendations and advice.

Mark C.

 

[NortonES2]

It's a feature we have 12Gb RAM and it's using 11.9Gb.

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If it doesn't leak oil it must be empty!!

 

[baddos]

Don't look at RAM usage as much as read io. If you are doing a lot of read IO, then you may need more ram.

 

[mlchris2]

okay, I monitored Disk I/O and it appears that I do not have a problem there.

I kind of figured if I put more memory in that server, it wouldn't do much for me... as that is the design of Exchange 2010.

What about the w3wp.exe processes... here are the averages in memory usage;

*MSExchangeAutodiscover 307MB
*MSExchangeSync 425MB
*MSExchangeService 284MB
*MSExchangeOWA 276MB
*MSExchangeECP 323MB
*MSExchangePowerShell 504MB

I usually have any app pool that is using alot of memory, cycle (do this on our Web servers). Is it safe for me to cycle these or should I leave these alone?


Mark C.

 

[58sniper]

What's more important is that the server is sized correctly for your environment. Exchange will *run* with much less than what you have installed. But a proper design should include all aspects of the environment, including client profile, features being used, mailbox sizes, client connectivity, retention and backup, AV scanning overhead, etc. There are a lot of things to take into consideration. Hopefully you didn't just call up the sales line at Dell and ask them.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[mlchris2]

thanks sniper, I didn't just call up Dell and ask them. I ran the Exch2010 Mailbox Role Calculator weeks prior before ordering the hardware. I took the recommendations from the calculator as well as the recommendations from the Dell Exchange specialist (recommendations in regards to configuration) and purchased the best hardware I could considering I had a very limited budget I had to work with.

I had to ask if what I was seeing was "normal", being a exchange 2010 newbie and all.


Mark C.

 

[58sniper]

Exchange has always been a resource intensive application. What you're seeing is perfectly normal. Run the Best Practices Analyser in the tools section of EMC to make sure you're configured properly.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[baddos]

Most of that memory usage is for cache. Exchange will cache data to avoid using a more costly way to access it (disk read or network read). It is ok if your server uses all of it's available memory if the other systems are not over utilized.