Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 274750 contains the following summary:
This article describes how to configure SQL Server to use more than 2 GB of physical
memory.
Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000
dynamically acquire and free memory as needed. When you run multiple instances
of SQL Server on a computer, each instance dynamically acquires and frees
memory to adjust for changes in the workload of the instance.
SQL
Server 2000 Enterprise Edition introduces support for the use of Microsoft
Windows 2000 Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) to address approximately 8 GB
of memory for instances that run on Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and
approximately 32 GB for instances that run on Microsoft Windows 2000
Datacenter. With AWE, SQL Server can reserve memory that is not in use for
other applications and the operating system. Each instance that uses this
memory; however, must statically allocate the memory it needs. SQL Server can
only use this AWE allocated memory for the data cache and not for executables,
drivers, DLLs, and so forth.
For additional information,
click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:
283037 Large memory support is available in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003
The extended memory size option is available only
for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, Enterprise Edition on the operating system and
hardware that supports the Enterprise Memory Architecture (EMA) feature. For
more information about how to configure your system to enable the EMA feature
on a particular system configuration, refer to your Microsoft Windows NT
documentation.
Some system vendors may provide products for
Microsoft Windows NT, version 4.0 or later, so that SQL Server 7.0, Enterprise
Edition can use the extended memory size option. On Intel platforms, SQL Server
7.0 can use a feature known as PSE36. On Alpha platforms, the feature that
allows use of the extended memory option is Very Large Memory (VLM). For more
information about the availability, installation, and configuration of these
products, contact your system vendor.
Note: To use Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) memory, you must run
the SQL Server 2000 database engine under a Windows account that has been
assigned the Windows lock pages in memory administrative
credentials.
Note
If you are using SQL Server 2005 to configure memory to use more than 2 GB of physical, see the following topics in SQL Server 2005 Books Online:
| • | Memory Architecture |
| • | Server Memory Options |
| • | Using AWE |
| • | Enabling Memory Support for Over 4 Gb of Physical Memory |
| • | Enabling AWE Memory for SQL Server |
