Warning: I'm a generalist, and what I know about configuring SQL server you could gather up and put in your belly button, and the lint wouldn't be displaced. Mostly, I can write queries to get what I need. Unfortunately, I'm also responsible for making the server do its thing, and I know almost nothing about that.
I'm trying to solve a problem with slow SQL server (2000). I want consistent times on my test queries, so I'm clearing the buffers/cache.
Among other things, I wanted to make sure all dirty pages were written to disk before messing around.
But if I run the commands:
DBCC MemoryStatus
Go
Checkpoint
Go
DBCC MemoryStatus
Go
...the Dirty Page count doesn't change.
I rebooted the server and it did change, but on start up still had 70 dirty pages listed.
I'm obviously not understanding something here. Is there a good and consistent way to make sure that when I'm running timing tests, I'm starting with the server in the same state? (This is a live server on an active website, and I'd rather not reboot every 10 minutes.)