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BadBoy House
Starting Member
41 Posts |
 Posted - 2009-09-19 : 07:26:28
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| Hi all.We've got SQL Server 2008 Standard installed on a member server. The server itself is running Windows Server 2008 Standard (32-bit) with max 4GB RAM installed.Currently I've got 2 SQL databases running on the server and the SQLServer.exe process uses about 1.4GB RAM. There's still 1GB RAM free according to task manager.We're soon going to be adding a third SQL database to the server.I'm concerned that adding a third database will effectively kill off the server and there'll be no free RAM.Am I right about this or shouldn't the RAM usage go up just because we're adding another database?I obviously need to avoid a low available RAM issue. I've just got a feeling that after adding the third SQL database the server will struggle to cope.thanks in advance |
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shah429
Yak Posting Veteran
52 Posts |
Posted - 2009-09-19 : 20:50:24
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| Well it depends on a lot of factors such as Size of the Database, What is it used for(OLTP or DW reporting) etc. |
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BadBoy House
Starting Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 2009-09-21 : 03:45:02
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| the third database will be relatively small - as are the other two databases. |
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YellowBug
Aged Yak Warrior
616 Posts |
Posted - 2009-09-21 : 03:59:16
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| Is the server currently "struggling to cope"?What other applications are running on the server? IIS? 3rd-party applications?Have you set the MAX MEMORY setting?Will the new database result in increased user connections?Depending on usage, you may be okay. It is normal to host several databases on one server.Monitor the usage before and after to get an idea of the impact. |
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Lumbago
Norsk Yak Master
3271 Posts |
Posted - 2009-09-21 : 04:02:24
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| Simply adding a database to the server doesn't pose a performance hit by itself, it just depends on how many users are connected to it and how much data they are using. But if you expect it to be pretty small and not have a lot of traffic it really doesn't matter.- Lumbago |
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BadBoy House
Starting Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 2009-09-22 : 12:02:32
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| thanks for your responses.To answer your questions:- The server isn't struggling (in my opinion). It's got the max 4GB with at least 1GB free.- We've got 40 users connected and this is not going to increase with the introduction of the third database.- I've not set the Max Memory setting- There are no other third party apps running on the server. It's specifically SQL server.Any further views? |
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AjarnMark
SQL Slashing Gunting Master
3246 Posts |
Posted - 2009-09-22 : 12:35:10
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| If it makes you feel better, I have a couple of servers running SQL Server 2000 SP3 Enterprise Edition that are supporting 30+ databases in 4 GB of RAM. As Lumbago mentioned, it's all about how heavy the traffic is, how big the databases are, and whether they are tuned well (e.g. indexing). SQL Server will tend to use as much RAM as it needs and is available, and once it has hold of RAM, it doesn't necessarily let it go unless some other application is demanding it. And even when it gets to a point where it appears to be consuming nearly all of the RAM available, that still doesn't mean that it is constricted. To really find out if RAM is a bottleneck requires a lot more work than just checking how much RAM the sqlserver.exe process is using. But if you're not concerned that SQL is not being responsive enough to the user/application, you are probably doing okay.--------------------------------------------Brand yourself at EmeraldCityDomains.com |
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tripodal
Constraint Violating Yak Guru
259 Posts |
Posted - 2009-09-22 : 14:54:17
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| SQL server will use memory of more than the size of your combined databases, OR all of your free memory, OR up to the max memory setting.My SQL box has more than 400 databases, and 121884kb of 2gb free.Free memory is not very useful for measuring "health" of your server. If your not having a disk bottleneck, consider it a good thing for SQL to be using all your systems ram. Since the reccomended solution is for SQL to be the only application on that hardware. |
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Question about memory usage in SQL Server 2008 Std