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 |
| 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 |
About Simon Seagrave
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My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a London (UK) based Senior Technology Consultant and Technical Marketing Manager working for EMC. I love my work & spend most of my time working with Virtualisation & other Enterprise IT based technologies, in particular VMware, EMC and HP products.
I am a VMware vExpert (2009 - 2014) and am also EMC Elect 2013 & 2014.
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?
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
Hi Andy,
Totally agree – though was just wanting to sanity check my thinking.
All the best,
Simon