The Kernel Trace driver is called each time any SES tracepoint is invoked. This happens constantly during normal use of the operating system. When tracing is dormant (i.e., tracing is not occurring), these invocations immediately return with no additional processing. This means that there is some slight CPU utilization increase when Kernel Trace is installed. However, this overhead is minimal and is not noticeable.
During tracing, there is an additional impact on CPU utilization due to the copying of data to the trace file.
The KTRACE.EXE program consumes approximately 0.4MB of RAM.
It is important to specify a maximum trace file size when tracing is
started (8MB by default). This will ensure that the tracing goals
are accomplished without hindering the operation of a production system
by filling its disk. A practical limitation on trace file size would
be the capabilities of the analysis tool used to read the KTRACE file.
Please see the command syntax section for details
on how to specify a maximum trace file size.