sp_BlitzFirst® Result:
Low Page Life Expectancy

According to sp_BlitzFirst®‘s diagnostics, Page Life Expectancy is under 5 minutes right now. This means SQL Server can only keep data pages in memory for that many seconds after reading those pages in from storage. (We’re not saying that PLE > 300 is enough to say SQL Server has enough memory, either – you can have a PLE > 300, and still have memory issues.)

This is a symptom, not a cause – it indicates very read-intensive queries that need an index, or insufficient server memory.

To improve performance, ask these questions:

How much memory does the server have? If we’ve got less than 16-32GB of memory, it’s probably time to just start throwing money at the problem short term.

What queries are doing the most logical reads? Tune those by improving the queries or implementing the right indexes, and we’ll be able to cache data more effectively.

For personalized help with getting the right answers for your server, we’ve got SQL Critical Care®.