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 Memory allocation concerns when using AWE

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AskSQLTeam
Ask SQLTeam Question

0 Posts

Posted - 2006-05-02 : 08:16:35
Patrick writes "Hi,

We have a new server with 16GB of RAM running Windows 2003 SP1 Entreprise edition x32 with SQL 2005 standard x32. For our first test we didin't use AWE and we saw that sql process was taking approx 2.7GB of RAM. Because we have 16GB RAM we dediced to use AWE.

When using AWE our SQL process never goes beyond the 100MB RAM mark is that normal?

- We enabled AWE by typing the following;

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
reconfigure
go

sp_configure 'awe enabled', 1
reconfigure
go

sp_configure 'min server memory', 1024
reconfigure
go

sp_configure 'max server memory', 4096
reconfigure
go

- In the boot.ini file we added /3gb and the /pae switches

- We granted the sql admin user the lock page memory access

- In the startup parameter we added the -h switch

- Our DB is 60GB of size

- We are doing tests by running some heavy queries with 20 millions of records approx ordered by field with no index.

At this point we want to know if it's normal that our sql process is using 100MB RAM or it should go beyond that number considering the queries that we are running.

Thank you

Patrick"

ashish459
Starting Member

2 Posts

Posted - 2006-12-21 : 07:32:16
Make sure you monitor through system performance monitor and not task manager.
Task manager doesn’t show physical RAM consumption
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mr_mist
Grunnio

1870 Posts

Posted - 2006-12-21 : 09:18:20
A couple of thoughts...

You don't need \3GB at all.

"The amount of memory acquired by the Database Engine is entirely dependent on the workload placed on the instance. A SQL Server instance that is not processing many requests may never reach min server memory."

You may need to restart.

-------
Moo. :)
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eyechart
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

3575 Posts

Posted - 2006-12-21 : 12:33:44
using the /3GB switch can potentially lead to problems with the amount of memory you have. My experience has been that when you have more than 12GB RAM and use the /3GB switch you run the possibility of running out of system page table entries (PTE). See this note for information http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316739/. As mr_mist suggested, you might want to disable that or if you are feeling adventurous, you can use the /USERVA switch mentioned in the previous article.

Task Manager is not AWE aware, so it won't show the correct amount of memory used by SQL Server. Your best bet is to use perfmon and monitor the SQLServer:Buffer Manager counter.


-ec
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