SQL Server not releasing memory after query executes

Question

I think I have a basic question here that many might have encountered. When I run a query in SQL Server it will load in memory all the data it needs for query execution (for

Answer 1

Old question, but figured i'd add my two cents. Mostly a riff on what was in the above answer using dsql to automatically roll back to the previous value after shrinking the memory amount. It's ugly, but it works.

IF OBJECT_ID(N'tempdb..##globaltemp') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
    DROP TABLE ##globaltemp
END

SELECT TOP 1 value
INTO ##globaltemp
FROM sys.configurations
WHERE NAME LIKE '%server memory%'
ORDER BY NAME
OPTION (RECOMPILE);

EXEC sys.sp_configure N'max server memory (MB)'
    , N'1024'
GO

RECONFIGURE
WITH OVERRIDE
GO

DECLARE @dsql AS VARCHAR(20)

SELECT @dsql = cast(value AS NVARCHAR(20))
FROM ##globaltemp

EXEC sys.sp_configure N'max server memory (MB)'
    , @dsql
GO

RECONFIGURE
WITH OVERRIDE
GO