Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Maximum Memory Limits

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With Windows Server 2008 R2 being the first x64 only version of Microsoft’s popular server operating system the maximum memory configurations are much simpler to remember.  It will likely be a while yet before the x32 version of Windows Server 2008 is stopped being deployed fully in production environments meaning that you’ll have to keep tabs on how much memory each version and build type can take.

Although it being relatively straight forward to remember here’s a table outlining the maximum memory limits of the various editions and versions of Windows Server 2008.

 

Version Maximum Memory Limit (x64 Only)
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter

2TB
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 2TB
Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium 2TB
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation 8GB
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 32GB
Windows Web Server 2008 R2 32GB

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Maximum Memory Limits

Version Max Memory Limit (x32) Max Memory Limit (x64)
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter 64GB 2TB
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 64GB 2TB
Windows Server 2008 Standard 4GB 32GB
Windows Small Business Server 2008 4GB 32GB
Windows Web Server 2008 4GB 32GB

 

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Why not take a look at my other related posts?:

  1. List of Microsoft Applications that are supported on Windows Server 2008.
  2. Differences between the various Windows Server 2003 Versions
  3. Free E-Book – Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Resource Kit
  4. What ever happened to ‘winmsd’ in Windows Server 2008, Vista and Windows 7?
  5. Unattended Windows Server 2008 Install
About Simon Seagrave

Simon is a UK based Virtualization & IT Technology Evangelist working as a Senior Technology Consultant and vSpecialist for EMC. He loves working in the ever changing IT industry & spends most of his time working with Virtualisation, Cloud & other Enterprise IT based technologies, in particular VMware, EMC and HP products.

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  • http://andyparkes.co.uk/blog Andy Parkes

    Great post, I’d love to see a server with 2TB of RAM!

    Being a bit pedantic though….there is no 32-bit version of Small Business Server 2008 because it’s bundled with Exchange 2007 which is 64-bit only?

    • http://techhead.co Kiwi Si

      Hi Andy,

      Thanks for the feedback. :)

      2TB of memory in a server would be quite a sight!

      Good point re: SBS2008 only being x64 – I thought I may have missed the point on this one. After some hunting I found this MS description which provides more detail.

      “SBS 2008 Premium comes with two Windows Server 2008 Standard Technologies licenses, which includes both x86 and x64 in the second DVD.
      SBS 2008 Standard’s base DVD includes only x64, because it is integrated with Exchange and cannot be separated. To downgrade SBS 2008 Standard to x32 would require a complete downgrade to the SBS 2003 R2 Standard version.”

      It comes down to the version you’d be running though as you correctly mention (in most cases) businesses would likely be running the x64 version of SBS 2008 and using E2K7.

      All the best,

      Simon

  • http://techhead.co Kiwi Si

    Hi Andy,

    Totally agree – though was just wanting to sanity check my thinking. ;)

    All the best,

    Simon