This should give you some idea of the ram required: USER PID %CPU %MEM SIZE RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 66 0.0 3.5 1408 668 ? S 16:55 0:00 /samba/bin/smbd -D root 68 0.0 3.6 1192 688 ? S 16:55 0:00 /samba/bin/nmbd -D