We have a Windows 2003 Enterprise server with SP2 that is running two instances of SQL Server 2000 STD with sp3a. We have had recent issues with our backup program, ShadowProtect, with the error 1450: Insufficient resources exist to complete therequested service. In trying to troubleshoot the issue the question of using the 3GB switch has come up. Our current setting in the boot.ini file is:multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003, Enterprise" /fastdetect /PAE /3GB /NoExecute=AlwaysOff.The server is an HP DL380 G5 with 12GB of ram and two quad core processors. Each instance of SQL is using less then 2GB of ram. Should we remove the 3GB switch?

The /3GB switch forces the system to reserve 1GB for itself instead of the normal 2GB. /PAE allows for memory addressing above 4GB. I did a quick web search on your error, and it seems to reinforce my initial suspicions, that you may be overloading the paged pool. The reserved paged pool size is a percentage of the available system memory. So the /3GB switch causes it to be much smaller than if the system had 2GB of memory allocated. You can force an increase in the paged pool size, but with 12GB of RAM and plenty of unused physical memory, I don't think there's a compelling case for the /3GB switch.www.operatingquadrant.com

Hello,see this article:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/274750For further questions better use a SQL forum.Best regards Meinolf Weber Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.