A server administrator is troubleshooting a database server that has become unresponsive under a heavy workload. The administrator collects the following memory performance metrics:
Memory\Available MBytes: 50
Memory\Pages/sec: 350
Paging File(_Total)\% Usage: 90
Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time: 35
Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the performance issue?
The server's CPU is bottlenecked by the database application.
The server has insufficient physical memory for its current workload.
The paging file is configured with an insufficient maximum size.
A corrupted network driver is causing excessive memory usage.
The combination of very low Available MBytes, high Pages/sec, and high Paging File\% Usage strongly indicates that the server is experiencing severe memory pressure. The system does not have enough physical RAM to hold all the necessary data for its workload, so it is frequently swapping data to and from the much slower disk-based paging file (virtual memory). This process, known as thrashing, leads to significant performance degradation because the system spends most of its time waiting for disk I/O. The Pages/sec counter reflects the high rate of these hard page faults. While the paging file is nearly full, increasing its size would not solve the underlying problem, which is the lack of physical RAM. The Processor Time at a moderate 35% shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck; in fact, low CPU can accompany high paging as the system waits for I/O operations to complete.
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What is `Pages/sec` and why is it important for diagnosing memory issues?
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What is the difference between physical memory and virtual memory?
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Why isn’t increasing the paging file size an effective solution in this scenario?