Determine WSUS Capacity Requirements
Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Update Services
Hardware and database software requirements are driven by the number of client computers being updated in your organization. The following tables offer guidelines for server hardware and database software, based on the number of client computers being serviced. A WSUS server using the recommended hardware can support a maximum number of 30,000 clients. Both the system partition and the partition on which you install WSUS must be formatted with the NTFS file system.
Important
WSUS 3.0 cannot be installed on a compressed drive. Please check that the drive you choose is not compressed.
Minimum hardware recommendations
| Hardware | Low-end 500 or fewer clients | Typical 500–3,000 clients | High-end 3,000–20,000 clients, or rollup of 30,000 clients | Super high-end 10,000 clients, or rollup of 100,000 clients |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CPU |
1 GHz |
1.5 GHz or faster |
3 GHz hyper threaded processor, x64 hardware |
3 GHz hyper threaded dual processor |
Graphics card |
16 MB hardware accelerated PCI/AGP video card capable of 1-24*86*16bpp |
16 MB hardware accelerated PCI/AGP video card capable of 1-24*86*16bpp |
16 MB hardware accelerated PCI/AGP video card capable of 1-24*86*16bpp |
16 MB hardware accelerated PCI/AGP video card capable of 1-24*86*16bpp |
RAM |
1 GB |
2 GB |
2 GB |
4 GB |
Page file |
At least 1.5 times physical memory |
At least 1.5 times physical memory |
At least 1.5 times physical memory |
At least 1.5 times physical memory |
I/O subsystem |
Fast ATA/IDE 100 hard disk or equivalent SCSI drives |
Fast ATA/IDE 100 hard disk or equivalent SCSI drives |
Fast ATA/IDE 100 hard disk or equivalent SCSI drives |
Fast ATA/IDE 100 hard disk or equivalent SCSI drives |
Network card |
10 MB |
100 MB |
1 GB |
1 GB |
Hard drive—system partition |
1 GB |
1 GB |
1 GB |
1 GB |
Hard drive—content storage |
20 GB |
30 GB |
30 GB |
30 GB |
Hard drive—SQL Server installation |
2 GB |
2 GB |
2 GB |
2 GB |
Note
These guidelines assume that WSUS clients are synchronizing with the server every eight hours (for the high-end configuration) or every two hours (for the super high-end configuration). If they synchronize more often, there will be a corresponding increment in the server load. For example, if clients synchronize twice a day, the load will be twice as much as if they synchronize once a day.
Note
Increasing the number of languages will also increase the load. Supporting five languages rather than one language will approximately double the size of the content directory.