SQLServerExpress leaks memory

Hi We are running BuildMaster 4.1.4 with SQL Express 11.0.2100 and every few days (after many Buildmaster jobs are run) the SQLserevr process is using > 1.2GBytes of memory and we need to restart the buildmaster service.

Do you have any info on how we can fix this issue.

Product: BuildMaster
Version: 4.1.4

This is addressed in Microsoft KB321363:

When you start Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server memory usage may continue to steadily increase and not decrease, even when activity on the server is low. Additionally, the Task Manager and the Performance Monitor may show that the physical memory that is available on the computer steadily decreases until the available memory is between 4 MB and 10 MB.

This behavior alone does not indicate a memory leak. This behavior is typical and is an intended behavior of the SQL Server buffer pool.

By default, SQL Server dynamically grows and shrinks the size of its buffer pool (cache), depending on the physical memory load that the operating system reports. As long as sufficient memory (between 4 MB and 10 MB) is available to prevent paging, the SQL Server buffer pool will continue to grow. As other processes on the same computer as SQL Server allocate memory, the SQL Server buffer manager will release memory as needed. SQL Server can free and obtain several megabytes of memory each second. This allows for SQL Server to quickly adjust to memory allocation changes.

That article will give some further links on how to adjust memory, but in general it's best to leave it alone. I believe SQL Express 2005 is capped at ~1GB usage anyway.