Is it possible to set Buffer pool extension on sql server, having 4 clustered Column Store index in SQL Server 2014?

Question

I created Clustered Column Store index on a table. I want to improve memory performance using buffer pool. Is it possible to set buffer pool on sql server, a table having clustered column Store index in SQL Server 2014? What will be the performance gain after setting buffer on it.

Answer 1

This is one of those "it depends" questions. The answer depends on a lot of things, such as how much RAM you already have in your system and your workload.

Real RAM is always going to give you better performance than the buffer pool extension, if you're running standard edition you can now use 128Gb with SQL server and filling your server with more RAM will give you much better performance improvements than using the buffer pool extensions.

You may also find that for your workload, using the SSDs for your data files rather than the buffer pool gives better results (especially for read heavy workloads with low cache hit ratios so it has to read a lot from disk)

Here is a link to a test done on buffer pool extensions by the Brent Ozar team:

SQL Server 2014 Buffer Pool Extensions

You may get different results with your workload and hardware, so you really need to test it yourself to get an accurate idea of how much it will help.

It is pretty much a given though that it won't help as much as adding more RAM.