Virtual Memory Server 2003 x64 with 12 GB RAM

[kelven]

Hello everyone, I hope someone can guide me a bit, I have a server with Windows 2003 Server x64; with 12 Gb of RAM, it has virtual memory configured so that the system decides how much to use (something I think is wrong), my question is, how much does it need?, because I'm not going to put the normal ratio (minimum x1.5, maximum x3) because I think it would slow down the system and removing it seems like another mistake to me, the system needs it, right?

[Yorus]

I think that as long as you don't use all the RAM, you shouldn't worry about virtual memory, although in some cases it may be used anyway. If you are running out of hard drive space, you might want to adjust it, but if not, I always prefer automatic, you never know when calculations can fail.

[kynes]

The issue is complicated, there are applications that if they detect that you don't have virtual memory, they simply won't start no matter how much RAM you have (some versions of Photoshop, for example)

I am in favor of reducing virtual memory to the minimum possible, as long as there is spare RAM. You avoid paging and it always runs much smoother using RAM than using the hard drive. However, if you can, leave the amount fixed, you avoid fragmentation of the hard drive. What will run on that server?

[kelven]

It has a 2003 x64 server with SQL server enterprise 2005 (and when it starts up, only 200Mb of RAM are left free)

[kynes]

Note that server operating systems usually reserve all possible RAM for caching, so you shouldn't have to worry about that, unless it's very poorly configured. The system would release RAM from that cache as it was needed.

I don't know, I would set a low amount, and test if I don't have crashes, application closures or warning windows, and always a fixed amount.