Submit a Ticket
Support Center » Knowledgebase » Web Server (Apache + IIS) » Monitor Memory in Windows with Resource Monitor

Monitor Memory in Windows with Resource Monitor

Monitor Memory in Windows with Resource Monitor

To monitor memory consumption Windows in real time you need to start the Resource monitor. You can do that from the command prompt and the run function by typing: resmon

The tool look depends on the Windows version, but the overall feel is the same.

The Memory tab's Processes section displays key metrics related to how the system's processes use memory. Here is information about the metrics:



• Hard Faults/sec. A hard fault does not necessarily indicate a critical error condition, though it may indicate that the server is in need of more RAM. A hard fault occurs every time the system uses the swap file on the disk. This is important because disk storage is much, much slower than RAM, so each time the system uses disk-based virtual RAM; there is a significant performance penalty. If you see hard faults on a regular basis (especially if the numbers are large), you should consider adding more RAM to the server. Hard faults are sometimes referred to as Page Faults.





Physical Memory







• Free. This value is how much RAM is currently available beyond what is in use. You might think that having such a small amount of RAM marked as free in this 16 GB system might identify a major problem, but that is the case. With many of Microsoft's newer products, it is better to use as much RAM as possible as to leave it idle. Products such as Exchange use RAM to its fullest extent and cache portions of the product for faster access.


For example, Exchange 2010 often uses as much memory as you can throw at it; this is by design. The thinking is that Exchange will use RAM to cache as much information as possible in order to improve overall performance. So it is important to look at other metrics, such as Hard Faults, to determine if there is a really a RAM-related performance issue on an Exchange 2010 machine. If a service should not be using a lot of RAM and it is, you need to do more troubleshooting; this is the point at which you might fire up Performance Monitor to gather more specific details.

 This answer was helpful  This answer was not helpful