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One of our Windows 2008 server I noticed has been running at 93% memory consumption for some time now. Is there a recommendation as to what percentage of physical memory should be free on a given machine before memory has to be added to it?

Edit 1: Attached a screenshot

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Edit 2: The box runs SQL server 2008 and is the top consumer of memory there. It has IBM FileNet P8 Content Engine, Process Engine and ICC running on it. enter image description here

Regmi
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  • I believe that you would get a better answer to this on ServerFault. Voting to move. – EBGreen Sep 28 '12 at 17:09
  • The amount of memory used/free would depend on what's running on the machine. You also haven't defined if you're talking about processes using the memory, or if it's Windows using it for caching. If things are running well, you WANT the OS to use memory if it's available, as it saves trips to the disk(s). – techie007 Sep 28 '12 at 17:11
  • Personally, I do not like seeing SWAP being used. If I notice SWAP space (ie Page File) consuming resources then I will upgrade the memory. – kobaltz Sep 28 '12 at 17:11
  • added a screenshot. – Regmi Sep 28 '12 at 17:14
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    Can you elaborate on the apps that are running? What is using the most RAM? Is SQL of some type running? – Dave M Sep 28 '12 at 17:21
  • @daveM added to the question. – Regmi Sep 28 '12 at 17:28
  • Have you set any memory limits in your SQL instance(s)? If not, they'll consume as much memory as they can. Again though, are you seeing problems/slow-downs, or does it just make you nervous having 93% of the RAM used? Having gobs of free memory that's never used does nothing for you. :) – techie007 Sep 28 '12 at 17:33
  • I don't think SQL memory has been set. I was just nervous, as you put it. But then that page file was so large, at least once so I guess, the box does need some good amt of memory added. – Regmi Sep 28 '12 at 17:36
  • @kobaltz: There's a difference between swapping and paging ;) – Oliver Salzburg Sep 28 '12 at 17:36

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Well, first thing is that you're reading the output wrong. You're at 200% memory usage. Your page file consumption is higher than your available memory. Further, your page file was once 14GB, and that's a little scary.

I don't know what you're running, but I strongly suspect you've got a lot of swap activity going on there. Add more memory.

See also How do I tell if my Windows server is swapping?

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Jeff Ferland
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  • Had not noticed the swap file. Thanks! If the max page file was 14 Gigs, any thoughts on how much more physical should I add now? – Regmi Sep 28 '12 at 17:34
  • Memory is relatively cheap... chuck 16GB at it. Find out what is using so much memory. In the best of circumstances, you'll diagnose what's consuming memory first. – Jeff Ferland Sep 28 '12 at 17:37