Memory allocation

Find information about memory allocation and sizing.

In general, 512 MB of memory per logical partition is sufficient for most configurations. Enough memory must be allocated for the Virtual I/O Server data structures. Ethernet adapters and virtual devices use dedicated receive buffers. These buffers are used to store the incoming packets, which are then sent over the outgoing device.

A physical Ethernet adapter typically uses 4 MB for MTU 1500 or 16 MB for MTU 9000 for dedicated receive buffers for gigabit Ethernet. Other Ethernet adapters are similar. Virtual Ethernet, typically uses 6 MB for dedicated receive buffers. However, this number can vary based on workload. Each instance of a physical or virtual Ethernet would need memory for this number of buffers. In addition, the system has an mbuf buffer pool per processor that is used if additional buffers are needed. These mbufs typically occupy 40 MB.