Enabling more than 2GB of RAM with x64 OS and Sql 2005

  • Our new Proliant DL385 will run Windows 2003 Standard SP1 x64 editon, sql 2005 Standard, and has 8GB of RAM. Do I still need to use /3GB and /PAE in boot.ini for sql to access memory beyond 2GB? Or is the extended memory recognized automatically by SQL in a 64-biit environment?

     

    TIA,

     

    bill

  • /3GB PAE and AWE are all 32-bit architecture workarounds.

    64-bit architecture will address upto 1024GB without fiddling about.

  • Excellent answer...but another question.

    I was told that in the 64-bit environment the OS will still claim half of the available RAM (i.e. 4GB) leaving sql 2005 a max of 4GB of RAM.

    1. Is this true.

    2. If true, is there a way (akin to "/3GB" in boot.ini) to insure that sql has 6GB max and restrict the OS to 2GB?

    TIA,

    Bill

    P.S. I know about virtual memory but it isn't as good as real RAM. The numbers I'm talking about here are for physical RAM. Any we may increase the RAM to 16GB soon.

  • The OS will claim as much memory as it needs just like it does under 32 bit windows, wherever you heard this from is probably getting confused with the OS limited to 2gb on a 4gb 32 bit machine.

    An application/process on x64 can use 1TB of address space depending on which OS version is running.

    For more info on SQL Server memory I suggest reading here: http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao, I recomend reading the info about Lock Pages in Memory permission, this will help perf on large memory x64 systems.

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