Should this question be reopened? *Noooooooo* It's not only basic knowledge for most who use MSSQL. Which doesn't actually matter all that much. But primarily! It is [a][1] [clear][2] [duplicate][3]. There are so many posts on serverfault / dba about the memory usage of SQL Server, I don't see why it's not just closed as a duplicate. It would answer the OP's question quite quickly if it was just closed as a duplicate, serve as a pointer to the tremendous amount of answers about SQL Server memory, and push the point _please do your own research_ more than simply closing it does. (not taking into account comments who are generally regarded as non-existent in the long run) [1]: http://serverfault.com/questions/93789/sql-server-slowly-hogging-ram-where-do-i-start-to-optimise [2]: http://serverfault.com/questions/387682/how-do-i-limit-ms-sql-server-memory-usage [3]: http://serverfault.com/questions/363134/sql-server-2008-should-i-set-minimum-server-memory