sql 64 bit memory setting

NavStudent

Hello.

One of our client has a sql 64 bit os 64 bit SQL 2K5 standard navision with RAID 10.

The system has 24 gig of memory RAM.

The sql server only utilizes 10 gig of it. The users mostly do searches for orders and customers.

The disk activity is very high, and I was wondering why sql uses only 10 gig and does go all the way up to 20 gig?

Is there a setting that needs to be changed?
Thank you.

DenSter

Check the memory settings of the SQL Server installation. In SSMS, right click the SQL Server instance and select properties. You can set minimum and maximum memory in there. Set it to a fixed number (i.e. the same values in the minimum and the maximum), so you don't burden the system with the decision of how much memory to allocate to SQL Server.

cnicola

Out of curiosity: which disks have high activity? Data, log and/or tempdb? And how many drives do you have?

I have Always Rowlock on all the time and on either the 50GB db or the 160+ GB I have never seen usage bigger than 10-12GB. I guess I am trying to say that maybe it is not the RAM that is the problem. Though if you got by all means crank it up to 20

NavStudent

How do I check that for specific files?

cnicola

You can use Windows' Performance Monitor and check the disk activity for the respective drives. You can look at average disk read/write queue length for instance.
What were you looking at when you noticed high disk activity?

Waldo

If you say you have RAID 10, you mean you just have 4 disks in RAID 10? You don't have a seperate dedicated spindle for the Transaction Log File. This is highly recommended.

How big is your database?