We are running Windows 2003 server with a hard wired network and a variety of boxes (some older some very current) with RAM of 500-2G
Rich, I am not sure what you mean by 500-2G. Do you have 500 or 2GBs of RAM. Or is 500 related to processor speed.
Either way, the first thing you should do it upgrade to 4GBs. And, try to do 2 X 2GBs and not 4 X 1GB.
It sounds as if you are not using SBS but regular but still you have:
AC = SQL
WSUS = SQL
Sharepoint (if you have SBS) = SQL
I really think that SQL stands for Super Quick Leaks, because it asks Windows for a lot of memory and Windows obliges.
Here is what I would do. Go into your office in the morning. Reboot your server. Go to Dunkin' Donuts and come back. It should be about rebooted by then. Then open task manager and look at how much memory SQL.exe processes are using and then go to the Performance tab and check out your physical memory. Like I rebooted earlier today, mainly because of memory alert issues. Right now, I have 2.6 GBs of RAM left out of 4 GBs. Now actually that is 2.6 out of 3.2 due to the constraints of a 32-bit OS.
Adam knows the following to be true. I bought a new $4,000 Dell Server which, as he says, was a great heater during the winter, because it was on but I did not use it. I couldn't make up my mind between SBS 2003 and SBS 2008. I just knew it was going to be a big job so I went ahead and stayed safe. But, it sure would be nice to put in 64 GBs of RAM. Then you could reboot once a year. Of course, I would only put about 12GB in, but I would put at least 12.
And, to take it to the extreme, about a month ago, when I disregarded the memory alerts, my whole staff sent messages to me (using the world's greatest messenger system -- IPMSG) (I can't believe it's free) saying "Is your AC slow?" Slow, it was grinded to a halt. One 15 minute reboot and a Dunkin' Donuts coffee later, and we were flying again.
Rich, do you have your alerts set up to send you memory alerts? But, when they begin to be slow, check your Task manager and look at the memory and the SQLs. Of course, WSUS actually doesn't come on except when it is being used.
