aspnet_state.exe Internals Info Needed

From: MattC (m_at_m.com)
Date: 02/21/05 

Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:58:31 -0000

I noticed when storing large amounts of information in the StateServer
Service that this does not increase in size, the worker process itself seems
to grow.

I set up a test case to try and prove this, I placed a button on a web form
that ran the foloowing code.
string temp = "index";

for(int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++)
{
 string index = temp + i.ToString();
 Session[index] = "This is a Test";
}

I notices that the aspnet_state.exe's Mem Usage and VM Size barely grew yet
my W3WP process grew to the point that I had to stop my app (yes my own
fault iterating 1M times).

I thought the State Server actually stored the session data itself, it would
seem from my example that this is not the case and that the memory space
used is that of the W3WP.

Does the State Server only act as a marchalling services pointing requests
for Session info to the correct memory location? If this is the case how
does it persist when an ASP.NET app is recycled.

Is that portion of memory allocated to storing the Session held back while
the ASP.NET app is recycled?

I've been trying to find information on how the State Server works
internally but as yet have found nothing.

TIA

MattC