A key factor in a partition’s memory requirements is how many secure fabrics the partition is associated with. A partition’s connection to a secure fabric is via a logical port on the EPP’s Mellanox host channel adapter (HCA). Each secure fabric requires a logical port (multiple secure fabrics may be assigned to the same logical port), and each logical port requires memory for drivers. Estimates of memory usage are as follows.
Linux
About 70 MB of memory are required for each secure fabric that the partition is associated with.
About 400 MB of memory are required for each Mellanox HCA logical port used.
So if you use different logical ports for each secure fabric that the partition is associated with, about 470 MB of additional memory are required for each additional secure fabric.
As a general guideline
5 secure fabrics would require roughly 3 GB of additional memory for the partition.
6 – 15 secure fabrics would require roughly 4 GB of additional memory for the partition.
16 – 25 secure fabrics would require roughly 5 GB of additional memory for the partition.
And so forth.
Windows
Windows partitions have only one default logical port and all secure fabrics associated with a partition are assigned to that logical port. A Windows partition can be associated with a maximum of 32 secure fabrics. So even a maximum of 32 secure fabrics for a given partition would require only about 5 GB of additional memory.