Answer
Memory grants are allocations for joins, sorts, and aggregates. Overestimated grants waste memory; underestimated grants cause spills to TempDB. Accurate row estimation and indexing ensure proper memory usage.
Quick Answer
Memory grants are pre-allocated for sort and hash operations. Underallocated → spill to TempDB. Overallocated → grants lock up RAM, starving other queries. Both situations degrade overall throughput. The root fix is always accurate statistics — the optimizer sizes grants based on estimated row counts.
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SugharaIQ Editorial Team
Verified Answer
This answer has been peer-reviewed by industry experts holding senior engineering roles to ensure technical accuracy and relevance for modern interview standards.
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Source: SugharaIQ