Server 2008 R2
 

So I will start bt saying I am totally lost when it comes to certain things with server. Second the place I am working for has it installed which is TOTAL overkill as they currently don't use domains or active directory.

Today I was looking at the system which is a Dell with a X3220 (I think) installed running 4gb of ram. Now when I looked at ram usage it was hovering around 2.8-2.9gb and had about 60-100mb free.

One thing I was curious about was I heard having the DNS active would chew up a lot of ram. Now being that this system is simply a file dump is it needed to have the DNS portion active?

Is there anything else I could do to perhaps lower ram usage?

Not sure why it's running so high if it's just acting as a file server...

Is DNS the only other role installed?

My Server 2008 R2 SP1 Domain Controller (for my house) sits at a mere 540MB usage. That has Active Directory and DNS roles running obviously. Granted it likely has less hits to it then your workplace though.

Sheesh.

Well the only other thing it does is run MYOB with many users.

I am not sure of other roles installed as I really don't know how to check.

But it seems like there is an issue if m usage is so hgh

Try to see if any useless service is on. You could turn sound and fancy video off. my server 2008 R2 is actually using 481mb out of 4GB so you can turn it down a bit for sure.

Never used MYOB (looks like accounting software?), but perhaps that's what's eating up the most. I imagine it's running a database of sorts, and is likely kept in RAM to keep transaction times low.

And if you have administrator access to the server, pull up Server Manager. It would tell you the roles installed.

Regardless, if the RAM usage is that high, I think you should really recommend to them that it's time to buy some more RAM for the server. It would likely increase the performance of their MYOB software.

Have you looked in task manager to see what process is eating up all your RAM?

myob apparently only uses a file for the db from what i can see as there is no sql servers running.
task manager shows nothing of importance on memory usage.
roles installed is dns and file sharing.
i am going to reboot the server this evening when everyone is logged out.

Are multiple accounts logged in at the server at one time? 3gb used should leave 1gb, so consider reinstalling the server in x64 and start on a clean slate to find the memory hog. My server runs in a virtual machine, roles include AD, WDS, DNS, DHCP, and IIS7. It takes 700mb running, and the only memory hog is Server Manager with all the modules open and then that takes another 300mb.

I run mine on 2gb of ram and it does dns/dhcp/ad/wins

-joe

Like I said this thing is nothing more than a glorified file server. It doesn't do any domain controls, no active directory, no exchange.. nothing.

MYOB uses a data file that gets shared across the network. This server could be running XP or Linux or even Windows 98 and be perfectly fine.