Physical memory cache behavior in Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

Question

I have a question regarding how windows manages the cache portion of phyiscal memory.  I have 2 servers which are identical OS configurations, hardware and experience nearly identical workloads.  Server 1 appears to use its cache a lot. I often
see physical cache at at 75% of total memory (total is 16gb for both servers). I also see that the cache stays this high
even when overall memory utilization is minimal (say approx. 3-4gb out of 16gb for long durations). I suppose this means windows memory manager is keeping pages in the cache because it anticipates it may need them again, but would overwrite them with
new data if new processes needed it (I think of  this cached memory when the system is near idle as "available" but correct me if I am wrong?)
Server 2 (again same workload and identical hardware, OS, configuration) doesn't appear to use cache as much. In fact, cache is always low round the clock (2 gbs usually) even when there is little to no memory utilization from processes outside the OS. Basically,
it is low when the server is near idle, while the server 2 keeps it very high during the same period of minimal workload. Why the difference? Does this behavior sound normal?  Please advise. I am not a Windows Admin btw. I have a rudimentary understanding
of memory.. or so I believe at least : )
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,
Although both server are identical OS configurations, hardware and experience nearly identical workloads, there are still differences between them. We can use task manager on both server and Check which processes are using physical memory, please go through
the below article to check more details about windows performance issue:
Troubleshooting Windows Performance Issues: Lots of RAM but no Available Memory
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mspfe/archive/2012/12/06/lots-of-ram-but-no-available-memory.aspx
Regards,
Yan Li
TechNet Subscriber Support
If you are
TechNet Subscription
user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback
here.
Regards, Yan Li