# How is MySQL using RAM
**URL:** https://forums.percona.com/t/how-is-mysql-using-ram/463
**Category:** Other MySQL® Questions
**Created:** [September 24, 2007, 10:56pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/how-is-mysql-using-ram/463 "2007-09-24T22:56:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@untenable](https://forums.percona.com/u/untenable)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2007, 10:56pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/how-is-mysql-using-ram/463/1 "2007-09-24T22:56:19Z")
My MySQL memory usage isn’t high enough ). I’ve a 10GB database on a 8GB-RAM DB Server. MySQL is only consuming 2GB of RAM.
How do I figure out what buffers MySQL is using the 2GB of RAM for?
That’ll give me some insight as to what buffers are being maxed out and need more memory.
Is there any other solution to this problem? Shouldn’t MySQL cache more in RAM so it has to hit the DB less often?
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### Author:  [@scoundrel](https://forums.percona.com/u/scoundrel)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2007, 2:00pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/how-is-mysql-using-ram/463/2 "2007-09-25T14:00:33Z")
To answer your questions I’d like to ask mine 😉
1. What storage engine do you use for your tables: innodb/myisam?
2. What CPU do you use on your server: 32-bit/64 bit?
3. What OS do you use: name, version, 32/64 bit?
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### Author:  [@untenable](https://forums.percona.com/u/untenable)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2007, 2:31pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/how-is-mysql-using-ram/463/3 "2007-09-25T14:31:01Z")
1. Currently Myisam but I’m working on converting to innodb
2. OS & CPU are 64 bit
3. OS is centOS…not sure where the OS version info is ).
Is there some tool that dumps the size of/info about various mysql buffers/caches?
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### Author:  [@sterin](https://forums.percona.com/u/sterin)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2007, 3:05pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/how-is-mysql-using-ram/463/4 "2007-09-25T15:05:07Z")
Usually you reserve half of the process addressspace for OS usage.
That’s why you can only use 2GB.
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### Author:  [@sterin](https://forums.percona.com/u/sterin)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2007, 3:19pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/how-is-mysql-using-ram/463/5 "2007-09-25T15:19:55Z")
| [B]sterin wrote on Tue, 25 September 2007 22:35[/B] |
| Usually you reserve half of the process addressspace for OS usage. That's why you can only use 2GB. |
From my post two steps up.
If you want to use your servers potential you should run a 64bit OS and 64bit MySQL.