Windows Server 2008 consuming 98% of RAM

[GoinAllTheWay]

To start off, I'm a PC guy, not a server guy so this may be normal but we had a server built for us a little over a year ago. Things seemed to slow down a bit a few months after it was built so I checked it's performance logs and it's showing that 98% of the 8 Gig of RAM we have in there are being consumed. I know this is not normal at the PC level. I called and asked the guy that built the server if this is normal and he said "Yes, Server 08 grabs it all but releases some if required.

He just sent me an email saying he is getting messages from the server that the RAM is saturated and we should buy more RAM. I just checked the logs again and it's still at 98%, just like when I asked him a while back but now he wants to sell more RAM.

Get the feeling like we are getting pounded slightly here.

In a nutshell....is this normal RAM useage for Server08?

[Rathji]

Windows 2008 is the same as Vista in that is will 'reserve' it by using Superfetch to prepopulate it with what it thinks you will need, but that really isn't meaningful. Check http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/200...my-memory.html for more details.

What you need to do is use Task Manager see what process is using that memory. Also, use perfmon see if it is paging a ton, since that will really slow a server down, and likely indicate that the RAM is really being used rather than reserved by Superfetch. Tip: don't run it on the server, either locally or through RDP, but rather do it remotely by right click --> Connect to another computer, as it will inflame an already bad situation if you are logged into a desktop session (since it uses more RAM).

If I had to randomly guess, I would think SQL is the most likely culprit, which means you can simply try restricting its RAM usage, because I believe the default install will chew up as much RAM as you have available.

[FlamingLonghorn]

What are you running on this server? Also, do what Rathji said above and see what is using the RAM. Do you or any other employee feel like performance for the applications on that server is slow?

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Rathji

If I had to randomly guess, I would think SQL is the most likely culprit, which means you can simply try restricting its RAM usage, because I believe the default install will chew up as much RAM as you have available.

Or Exchange...but in either case, don't limit memory to these apps. Exchange 2007+ and SQL 2008+ will indeed use as much RAM as they can, but they also support API's in the OS that allow them to gracefully release memory back to the OS when there is pressure for RAM from other processes. A heavily loaded Exchange or SQL box won't swap needlessly.

Also, don't look at pagefile size as an indication of swap activity (as you noted, use perfmon) - the pagefile will often be quite large, since it has to act as the backing store for allocated virtual memory (which may or may not physically exist), but not actively utilized (or very lightly utilized).

There is a lot of art/science to memory on Windows Server 2008 that goes on behind the scenes - don't assume you* can do a better job

*edit: the general you, not the specific you..I have to stop using that term..

Find out what process is using a lot of memory, and we can explore from there.

[GoinAllTheWay]

OK, SQL.EXE has two instances that appear to be running, those two and store.exe seem to be the three biggest culprits. Pretty sure store.exe has something to do with Exchange. Between the 3 of them, they seem to be taking up almost two gigs of RAM all on their own. I opened up the SQL database manager and the default RAM useage seemed to be 2 Petabytes, that seems excessive. After looking around the net, most seem to think it doesn't need more that 100 meg.

So this server is being used for exchange, our agency manager (we are a insurance brokerage) and some quoting software. The rest is really just file hosting. We don't move much data around or in & out of the office but for what it does, it should be MUCH faster IMO. It was very fast at first but like I've said, myself and others have noticed a gradual slow down over the past months.

I dunno....you guys know more than I do so I'll leave it alone for now.

I guess back to my main question for those that know, is 98% utilization normal? Would adding more RAM speed up the server or am I wasting money doing so?

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

OK, SQL.EXE has two instances that appear to be running, those two and store.exe seem to be the three biggest culprits. Pretty sure store.exe has something to do with Exchange. Between the 3 of them, they seem to be taking up almost two gigs of RAM all on their own. I opened up the SQL database manager and the default RAM useage seemed to be 2 Petabytes, that seems excessive. After looking around the net, most seem to think it doesn't need more that 100 meg.

So this server is being used for exchange, our agency manager (we are a insurance brokerage) and some quoting software. The rest is really just file hosting. We don't move much data around or in & out of the office but for what it does, it should be MUCH faster IMO. It was very fast at first but like I've said, myself and others have noticed a gradual slow down over the past months.

I dunno....you guys know more than I do so I'll leave it alone for now.

I guess back to my main question for those that know, is 98% utilization normal? Would adding more RAM speed up the server or am I wasting money doing so?

Likely a Windows Server 2008 SBS (small business server edition), if its running SQL and Exchange (which it is).

Short answer to the question - 98% utilization is normal, and what you want (all resources being efficiently used to support all processes). Additional RAM will always help speed up a database or mail server - it allows a larger portion of the data set to be kept in RAM, for stored procedures to remain compiled in memory and ready to go, for temporary indexes, etc.

A server with processors that are 90% idle, and half the RAM unallocated is a waste of resources. Ideally you want all your RAM in use, and the processors humming along at a decent utilization (but not so heavily loaded that processes are waiting for scheduling to run, of course)

[psicodude]

What exactly do you mean by slow? Is it Exchange, SQL, file/print services, or something else? Giving some more detail about the symptoms will narrow things down significantly.

If it is truly a server (not used for surfing the web and relatively immune to malware) then I would focus some energy on looking at your disks as they tend to wear out first. Maybe you have a dead/dying drive and your server is constantly trying to rebuild the raid set? Maybe you have cheap SATA disks and they can't produce enough iops to keep up?

The easiest place to start troubleshooting is event viewer as any real problems will show up in there. Feel free to post some results here as there are a ton of knowledgeable posters.

[Rathji]

If your SQL and Exchange are only taking 2GB all together, then it is likely not the (immediate) issue.

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Or Exchange...but in either case, don't limit memory to these apps. Exchange 2007+ and SQL 2008+ will indeed use as much RAM as they can, but they also support API's in the OS that allow them to gracefully release memory back to the OS when there is pressure for RAM from other processes. A heavily loaded Exchange or SQL box won't swap needlessly.

That I did not know, and it is good info. I don't actually deal with our SQL databases, I let the DB guys break it as they see fit. I do know that is what they did when I asked them about excessive RAM usage (was upwards of 6GB IIRC)