How much memory will a Windows file-server be able to use effectively.
- by Zoredache
In the near future we will be moving our fileserver to a newer box that will be running Windows 2008R2. I want to know how much memory Windows will be able to use for a system that is just a file-server.
In searching around I found an old document for Windows 2000 that mentions the maximum size of the file-system cache is 960MB. I suspect this limit no longer applies, but is there a new limit?
The file server will be just a standard Windows fileserver. It will have 1TB of attached storage. The large majority of the of the files accessed during the day are just typical Office documents. There are 80-100 people usually using the fileserver during a typical day. This system will only be used as a file server, it doesn't have any other roles.
In Windows 2008r2 is there any hard limits for the filesystem cache? What are they?
The server we will be re-using for this purpose currently has 4GB of memory, but it can be maxed out at 16GB. Is there any value in doing this for a Windows file-server?
Are there any performance counters can I look at on the existing 2003 fileserver that will tell me if adding more memory will be worthwhile.
