SAS installation configuration - MEMSIZE and SORTSIZE

[EliotJohnson]

I originally purchased SAS for a laptop with Windows 8 OS, 1 CPU chip and 16 gig of RAM. Since then, I have purchased a much bigger machine with Windows 10 OS, 2 GPU chips and 32 gig of RAM, uninstalled SAS from the original machine and reinstalled it on the new one. In addition, I have rewritten the config file to increase the RAM and sort allocations to 8 and 6 gigs respectively.

Based on usage and performance statistics from Windows Task Manager it is not apparent that SAS is leveraging the full capabilities of the resources available to it. For instance, memory utilization never exceeds 2 gig and 1 chip.

Is there something embedded in the SAS installation instructions that prevents or blocks the use of these additional resources? Does this mean I need to purchase a new SAS license with new configuration/installation instructions?

[ChrisHemedinger]

Rather than focusing on utilization, look at the bottom-line performance of the tasks you're running.

This SAS Note has guidance about the optimal settings.

This paper about "Happy SAS users" also has more explanation and guidance.

[SASKiwi]

What version of SAS are you running, including maintenance level and is it 64-bit?

[JuanS_OCS]

Hello @EliotJohnson,

your question is good, and quite interesting, thank you.

Please give a look to the suggestion made by @ChrisHemedinger and the questions by @SASKiwi.

It seems to me as the changes might not be applied as required by the SAS sessions you use. Let me explain.

- The SAS configuration is in sasv9.conf and sasv9_usermods.conf files.

- For pure SAS Foundation processes, also a sasv9.conf file is done per encoding/language used: u8, en, ... 

- In the top of it, if you have a metadata connection, you will have also a SAS Application Server (SASApp) and you would be using a SAS Workspace Server as default. SASApp loads its own sasv9 and sasv9_usermods (in the top of the SAS Foundation ones), and then the SAS Workspace Server its own as well (in top of the SASApp ones and the SAS Foundation ones).

- Then, additionally, you could be using Batch, Stored Process or Pooled Workspace servers, which have their own config, same as Workspace.

Hence, to customise the memory settings (any conf settings) you must know upfront the kind of SAS session you will be running, and once you know, you will know the config file chain you need to control (always enough with just the immediate sasv9_usermods config file, unless you want to inherit the config with other sas sessions.