SQL Server not using available memory

Question

SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition (64-bit) on Windows 2008R2 Enterprise

• Server has over 300 GB of memory but total memory use in control panel never goes over 86 GB
• Have SQL configured to use the maximum amount of memory

• Even under heavy use - CPU over 80% for minutes

• Dedicated SQL Server

• Several large databases
• One heavily used table has an index size alone of over 10 GB

Set the service account to hold locks in memory

Is that normal?

What can I test?

Can I get SQL Server to use more memory?

Answer 1

Standard Edition is limited to a 64 GB buffer pool.

To use all the available memory of the server, you'll need to upgrade to either Enterprise or Datacenter Edition, or scale out to multiple instances of Standard Edition.