/3GB switch in boot.ini on Windows 2003 standard

[Guest]

Has anyone used the /3GB boot.ini switch on Windows 2003 standard edition
DC's to increase performance. I have read two Microsoft articles which
contradict one another ?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...ide/aacaf4d8-a0c1-42d0-8eda-1c410177a7ce.mspx

This one states: Important
The /3GB switch should not be used on Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server
2003 Standard Edition because it is unsupported and can cause application or
operating system crashes.


http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...ide/aacaf4d8-a0c1-42d0-8eda-1c410177a7ce.mspx
This one states:

Use of the /3GB Switch on Active Directory Servers
The Active Directory process uses the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) for
its database. By default, the ESE cache size is 512 MB. However, if you use
Windows 2000 Advanced Server or Windows Server 2003 (any edition) for your
global catalog servers, and you have more than 1 GB of physical RAM
installed, you should set the /3GB switch in the Boot.ini file of these
servers. This action automatically increases the ESE cache to 1024 MB. In
most circumstances, having a larger cache reduces the number of disk reads by
20-40 percent and dramatically reduces LDAP response times.
On systems that have 1 GB or more of physical memory, it is recommended that
you use the /3GB startup switch in the Boot.ini file. This helps reduce the
amount of memory fragmentation in the virtual address space of the Active
Directory process.
The /3GB switch should only be used on Active Directory servers with 1 GB or
more of memory that are running any of the following operating systems:
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server


Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[Joe Richards [MVP]]

For DC performance (DIT Caching basically) /3GB is fully supported on K3 Standard.

For Windows 2000 Enterprise servers, your benefits start when you have ~512MB of
RAM. With Windows Server 2003 (any version), your benefits start around ~1.5GB
of RAM. This is due to changes in the K3 caching mechanisms which are already
better by default than 2K.

joe