How to see what
is using your server
Windows has this built in. The useful part is not opening it but knowing what the numbers mean — whether your VPS is too small, or one terminal is behaving badly. Those look identical from the outside and cost very different amounts to fix.
Watch it instead
Open Task Manager first
Ctrl + Shift + Esc. Click More details if it opens small, then the Processes tab. Sort by Memory. This answers most questions on its own and is quicker than Resource Monitor.
Look at what each terminal is using
Click the Memory column to sort. A MetaTrader terminal with a few charts sits around 150 to 300 MB. One using well over 500 MB has too much history loaded or too many charts open — that is a settings problem, not a plan problem.
Check the total, not the terminals
The Performance tab shows memory in use against what you have. Windows itself takes 1 to 1.5 GB before anything of yours starts. Consistently above 85% is genuinely tight; brief spikes at news events are normal and not worth acting on.
Open Resource Monitor for disk and network
Start menu, type Resource Monitor. The Disk tab shows which process is writing — useful when everything feels slow but memory looks fine. An EA logging every tick will show here and nowhere else.
Watch it for a few minutes
A single reading tells you very little. Leave it open through a busy period — the number at a quiet moment is not the number that matters.
Reading the numbers
How do I know if I need a bigger plan?
Memory consistently above 85% with terminals already tuned, or processor above 70% sustained rather than in spikes. If either only happens at news events, you do not need a bigger plan.
One process is using far more than the others
Usually a terminal with full history, occasionally a badly written EA in a loop. Try the optimisation settings first — that is free and takes two minutes.
Memory is full but nothing is running
Windows caches aggressively and reports cache as used. Look at In use rather than the total on the Performance tab.
The processor sits at 100% with one terminal
An EA in a tight loop, or one doing heavy calculation on every tick. Check the Experts log — an EA printing constantly is usually the same EA burning the core.
Everything looks fine but it still feels slow
Check the Disk tab in Resource Monitor. Constant writing slows everything and does not show up as memory or processor at all.