Randolph West starts a new series on the buffer pool in SQL Server:
Now that we’ve reminded ourselves of those fundamentals, let’s take a closer look at the buffer pool.
The buffer pool in SQL Server resides in the computer’s main memory (RAM). When the database engine requests a data page for reading or writing, it is assumed to be in the buffer pool. The buffer pool itself controls access between RAM and storage. If the data page that the database engine requests is not in RAM, a request is sent to the storage engine to retrieve that page. This may be storage directly attached to the system, or via a network interface card.
This first post is a high-level overview, but it looks like there’s a lot more in store from Randolph.