How much RAM is really sufficient.

My elderly friend's iMac17" ( vintage 2003), with a 800 mhz processor, running OS 10.2.8 on 768 Meg RAM is very sluggish.
Is this sluggish behavior RAM related?
What is considered adequate memory for this model iMac?

Hello Barbara:
As I cannot, from long range, diagnose what would appear to be a hardware problem (or two or three or...), I cannot even postulate what might be causing a slowdown - the fresh install certainly seems to preclude software issues.
I read quite well, actually. The quote below from the knowledge base article certainly indicates to me that disk utility is the preferred method for troubleshooting problems in OS X 10.4.x that formerly were addressed by fsck. I did read the entire article prior to posting the link. Fsck is not prohibited, but the Apple documentation certainly is clear regarding what should be used. Incidentally, I am not engaging in a dialogue to split hairs. I am, however, clarifying a point so that anyone else that reads this post uses what Apple recommends, not what will work.
*"Note: If you're using Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you should use Disk Utility instead of fsck, whenever possible."*
Barry

Similar Messages

How much ram do I really need?

Can anyone tell me how much ram I really need? I am running pro tools 7.1LE & reason 3.0 on a quad core 2.66 w/ the orignal 2x512 sticks. I am amazed how well this rig has run w/ so little memory, but I now have the dough to add some more. I ran the activity monitor & found it was using my system hardrive to keep up with both apps running via re-wire. I have a glyph firewire400 dedicated audio drive so I know that ram is my final upgrade before moving to a pro-tools TDM system. After reading all the posts I've decided to either install 4x1gb or 4x2gb. Is 4gb enough? Is 8gb overkill? any thoughts appreciated.

OT but... how many cores does your server have or use? And if there is a rule out there, my bet would be in the IBM tech library.
Memory bound vs cpu bound. Intel sees a real problem getting the right memory to the right core, because right now, compilers aren't smart enough and don't do a good job scheduling or threading for multi-core, and quad-core and above makes it more obvious than it was before.
IBM's AIX allows for partitioning so that part of a core can be shared but VMs, or memory can be dynamically reassigned to different "cpu partitions".
All the rules from my days on IBM equipment are useless and out the door.

How much RAM do we really need

I currently have a G5 with 4gb or RAM. I'm thinking of buying a new MAC pro - but given that it's memory is expensive - my question is how much ram do I really need for aperture to run well?
Can I get away with just 2GB? Or should I just suffer(financially) and move to 4GB. My camera is 10.4 megapixels and I tend to convert the files to photoshop for editing purposes.

You Americans have it easy! There's a nice Mac Pro on the Apple refurb store -
3.0GHz, 2GB RAM and an X1900XT/512MB at a price to make us in the UK cry! (about $1700 less than we'd pay!)
I guess I'll stick with my G5 for a while (very smooth with 3.5Gb RAM, my MBP is much better now with 2GB, 1GB got slow at times).
Steve

How much ram and processing power in my imac will meet my graphic design needs?

Hi,
I'm in the market for a new imac. I'm trying to figure out how much ram I'll need and which processor will be sufficient for my graphic design needs.
I'm gonna need it to be robust enough to have InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator open at once along with spotify, safari with many tabs open, and a couple other apps including evernote and game from time to time. Also, I'm gonna be managing a good deal of fonts in font explorer. How much ram and processing power will I need in my imac to keep everything snappy with all these apps going at the same time?
Any advice on this would be much appreciated. Feel free to include any other relevant information you think I should know.
Thanks, Nick

Computers are out of date when you open the box
Ok, getting serious, that iMac should be a viable workhorse for what you want for a good five years, and taht depends on how much ram you put in it, add really fast external storage, and so on.
Didn't throw this in earlier so as to not influence the discussion: my daughter is the senior art director, VP, at a graphics design firm in NYC. Has been in the business for a number of years. When she changed out her Mac at work, bought, or company bought, the 27" iMac model just before the latest, with maxed out CPU/GPU, and storage. They maxed the memory to 32 GB for her, then added a 30" Apple cinema display so she has almost 5' of display in front of her. There is nothing she cannot have open all spread across that display area. She works almost exclusively in print media, occassionally condescends to do web stuff. And has a massive array of RAID drives hanging on it. But that is a setup an individual would be hard pressed to go with.
At home she uses a MacBook Pro with top cpu and display but that is all.
The point, just how massive do you want to go depends on how fast you have to work; in the office where time is money you need tons of horsepower. At home, you scale it to your abilitty to juggle other tasks at the same time.
I think your choices have been great, the discussion has focused on what is important and especially what can and cannot be changed in the future.
Best of luck setting this up.

HELP: How much RAM can my G4 hold?

Hey, quick thanks up front to anyone who answers this.
I've got an iBook G4 that I bought in 2004. It's a 1Ghz G4 with a 60gig hard drive. When I bought it from MacMall, I got a free RAM upgrade, and as such up until about a month ago, it had 640MB of RAM. Then without warning the upgrade RAM died. I was left running with the 128MB that were built in. You should try running Dashboard on 128Megs... It's ****. I have since taken the bad RAM out, and am looking into replacing it/upgrading so I have 1GB of RAM. Now here's the thing: When I went to the Apple specs page, it said that my computer could only have a maximum of 640Megs of RAM. But when I look at the slot, it seems to match the same size as for the 1GB cards. How much can I really hold? I would like to be able to go to 1GB.
Thanks for any help.
-urbanwerker
iBook G4, 1Ghz, 128MB Built in, 60GB Hard Drive, Combo Drive, Tiger Mac OS X (10.4.7) Had Ram Upgrade Previously

Your computer will accept a 1GB module. This is not stated on Apple's specifications page because 1GB modules were not available when that iBook first came out, and the specifications were not updated afterwards.
(15275)

How much Ram can my MacBook hold?

Hi, I'm looking at upgrading my MacBook Ram from 2GB to 4GB. I've had a look around various websites, forums etc. to find out how much Ram my Mac can hold but it seems to have given me conflicting advice. The Mac is from late 2006. It has Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GHz, 250GB and currently has 2GB Ram. If anyone could give me an answer I would really appreciate it :-)
Thanks.

I sure do. Try OWC orDataMem

How much RAM should I add to my 2008 iMac?

Hi everybody,
I currently own an 20-inch Early 2008 iMac, and I was wondering what would be the best RAM upgrade for what I use the computer for. At the moment, I have 2GB of RAM and I'm running Mavericks, and I can tell that it isn't as fast as Snow Leopard. I use the computer for mostly video editing on Final Cut and sometimes iMovie, and also a little Photoshop here and there.
My question is: How much RAM should I buy (and from who) in order to speed up my iMac so that it can handle these programs without being painfully slow.
Thank you!

Your machine came with two 1GB RAM modules. The most it can take is a total of 6GB, by buying one 2GB and one 4GB module. Don't be tempted to buy these on the cheap, go with Crucial, OWC (macsales) or Ramjet. This will cost about $140. You will see an improvement if you only buy two 2GB ($65) and go to a total of 4GB, but I think you will see a significant additional boost by going to 6GB. The apps you are using can REALLY make use of all the RAM they have access to.

How much RAM should I upgrade too?

I recently purchased a 13" MacBook Pro. It is a mid-2012 model. It currently has 4 GB. I connect it to an external monitor which makes it easier for me to use while editing. I always have the application sit and load with the spinning ball icon. I use FCPX, Photoshop, and After Effects on a daily basis. I was wondering if the RAM increase would help me create my videos more efficently. Thanks for all the comments and help ahead of time!

You should benefit from adding more RAM. How much is hard to say but at least to 8 GBs. You might know more if you observed your memory usage in Activity Monitor.
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
Adding RAM only makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.

How much ram can I put In a 12" 867MHZ?

Hi,
I've just picked up a 12" 867mhz Powerbook for a very reasonable price! My question is how much ram can i put in it? It currently has 640mb. Also if i can put some more in it will it run Leopard?

Bear in mind you can customise the install of Leopard to exclude some languages and particularly exclude printer drivers that aren't relevant to you, this will substantially lower the total required space. 12" Powerbooks are rather fiddly to work on - here's a really thorough guide on Hard drive replacement etc. for your Powerbook:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/PowerBook-G4-Al-12-Inch/53

How much Ram do I need in a MacBook Pro for Software Engineering?

I plan to buy a new MacBook Pro in the next month for school and hopefully for work. I would like this computer to get me at least 4 years of use. I will be majoring in software engineering. My question is how much ram would I need in a Macbook Pro for software engineering? I am currenty looking at the 15" 2.3ghz base model with 8gb of ram as well as the 15" 2.4ghz base model retina. I really like the retina but its at my max budget. Will the 8gb of ram be enough since it is not upgradable? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I am currenty looking at the 15" 2.3ghz base model with 8gb of ram
The MB Pro 15" 2.3Ghz with 8GB of RAM should do the trick.
Save your $$$ on the retina and stick to your budget

How Much RAM????

I am a Pentium 4 laptop owner, and have been interested in anything APPLE for 10 months now. I am into heavy video editing and photography, as well as web design. Since I never owned a mac, I don't own any apps that are POWER PC native, and I don't think I'll buy Adobe products untill they are universal in CS3. Nontheless, I want a FAST system, and be able to multitask. How much RAM do you suggest I put into this beast....and in what pairs (i.e. 2 x 2GB etc.) Thanks a lot,
Michael

If I were to go back in my Time Machine to June 2003, just as the G5 was announced, there was a dearth of DDR400/PC3200 and 1GB chips that worked were hard to come by , and sometimes lead to incompatibilities and the need for "matched pairs" in particular.
Maybe in a year some "Mac Pro II" (well, that brings back memories of IIx and IIfx memory as well and doubt we'll see that name used anytime again), as long as the Mac Pro is tied to Xeon then ECC is probably a given but...
does anyone know the size of the market using FB-DIMMs like these? sure there are some server farms with TBs of memory, but 4 million Mac Pro users might get some real marketing attention too.
The "sweat spot" for many G5 owners even with lite use as a general desktop computer was 1.5GB RAM due to the way G5 code is written and laid out in RAM. I wonder, outside of Rosetta, if the Pro has as much of an appetite.
3GB might - for now - be that "sweat spot". With more for any apps that are memory-hungry. Having to spend $800 on memory might keep more than a few people on the side-lines, so it really is in Apple's interest that RAM prices decline to help the Christmas shoppers.
G4 MDD WD 320 OEM 9600 1.75GB SoftAID 3 Mac OS X (10.4.7) Mac Pro "rev 2" (hopefully)

How much RAM for ONE App & does OS X limit allocation?

Hello all,
This question concerns how much RAM I realistically need to run ONE application to it's fullest. I mainly use ProToolsLE 7.3, but sometimes use LogicPro 8 and Final Cut Express 4, again, only one running at a time. I've read on the ProTools forum that Windows (yuck) limits the amount of RAM that can be allocated for 1 application. Does Mac OS 10.4 or 10.5 do this?
Right now I have the stock 1GB (2 x 512MB). I plan on pulling it and installing a matched quad of either 1GB sticks (4GB total) -OR- 2GB sticks (8GB total). I understand that matched quads in slots 1/2 of both risers is optimum for the early Mac Pros.
The ProTools forum isn't helping much. A ProTools support person said that starting with 4GB will be good to start and that they test their systems with 4GB installed. What did they mean by "good to start"? Will it increase jumping to 8GB or is 4GB all ProTools can really use?
Another guy on there said "keep in mind that to use 4GB of ram - you'd need a 64bit Operating system (not supported by pro-tools) or on a MAC PAE support enabled, which depending on your hardware may not be a great move." I dont know what that means! Mac OS 10.5 IS a 64bit OS, right? And ProTools 7.4 NEEDS OS 10.5 to run....even if it is only a 32bit app. (though right now I am running PT 7.3 on OS 10.4....not sure if 10.4 is 64bit)
A quad set of 1GB is under $170 and a quad set of 2GB is under $270. Funds are tight right now, but I think I can swing the extra $100 to double the RAM -IF- it will make a difference.
Any thoughts as to wether the extra $100 will be worth it, or am I wasting my money? Thanks!

Hatter,
Thank you so much for your advice! If I may bother you to receive one final suggestion....
Based on the best prices I have found from all of the well known Mac Pro memory dealers, I have narrowed it down to 3 configurations that are balanced. Even though I'm still not 100% confident that 8GB of RAM will give me any noticable imporvement over 6GB, the price is only $42 more to get 8GB. Am I correct in saying that the early Mac Pro would do better to have one matched quad set of RAM over the new Mac Pro's increased performance of having all eight slots filled? Here are the 3 configurations and prices.
4 x 1GB + 4 x 512MB = 6GB Quad+Quad $220 (using my stock 2x512MB sticks)
4 x 2GB = 8GB Quad $262 (pulling my stock 2x512MB sticks)
8 x 1GB = 8GB Octal $278 (pulling my stock 2x512MB sticks)
Which do you think would be the best route?
I already purchased a WD Caviar for my dedicated audio drive. I installed a Seagate 7200.9 in my PowerMac G4 for it's audio drive, but after reading various reveiws, concluded the WD Caviar is a better performer. I LOVE my WD My Book Studio external. I hadn't considered replacing the boot drive, but after reading articles suggesting that it improves overall system performance, and now that you've recommended it as well, I will probably buy a second Caviar for the boot/system drive.
This computer is a DEDICATED audio computer, for ProTools & Logic only....other than a bit of fiddling in Final Cut Express. It's not even connected to the internet and all unnecessary apps are not installed or uninstalled. I also never migrate apps, but always do a fresh install of everything from the ground up.
Thanks again for your advice! It's been a big help!

*Noob* Which of these would I use for a scratch disk? How much Ram?

Hello, I am fairly new to Photoshop as I have used Lightroom ever since I've been a photographer. I recently got into Photoshop with the cloud as well as layering multiple exposures together. I never KNEW anything about scratch disk, until yesterday.
First let me stress, please answer my questions in layman's terms. I search the net before I start a topic on a forum and I read a lot of answers that seem to be responding to people who have a general idea of what is already going on. Remember, I DO NOT. Here are my questions:
A:If the scratch disk acts like RAM, do I need to allow it to use any of my ram at all? If so, how much? I have two Macbook Pro's, they are the highest model Apple makes, both have SSD drives, Quad Core i7's, etc. I unchecked my Macbook hard drive and told it to use an external SSD drive that is plugged in via USB 3.0. Would it be better to use an HDD instead of SDD? I have lots of hard drives to choose from due to being a music producer.
B:When I exit the program does it delete all the data it created? This question is two fold, does it delete it regardless if I saved the project or not? If I save the project does it stay there? What if I delete the original photo, was the photo imported into photoshop upon camera raw?
C: Like question A, how much ram do I choose? I have 16GB of Ram in each of my MacBooks.

OK, I have now copied your hillbilly text and pasted it into a text editor to change the typeface so I can read it.
I'll try to address the lose ends here.
A:…I have two Macbook Pro's, they are the highest model Apple makes…
Please forgive me for not being impressed. I just happen to consider any laptop a sub-optimal choice for Photoshop photography work. My personal opinion. (Please don't ask me why.)
, both have SSD drives,… I unchecked my Macbook hard drive and told it to use an external SSD drive that is plugged in via USB 3.0. Would it be better to use an HDD instead of SDD?…
I assume you are talking about using the external drive as your primary scratch disk, not as your boot disk. That is the appropriate thing to do. HD or SSD will both do the job fine, as long as they're physically separate, dedicated Photoshop scratch disks.
Obviously the internal drive will be your boot disk. Adobe applications really like to reside on the boot disk, the drive where the OS resides.
B:When I exit the program does it delete all the data it created?
This question is two fold, does it delete it regardless if I saved the project or not?
If I save the project does it stay there? What if I delete the original photo, was the photo imported into photoshop upon camera raw?
NOTHING is ever imported into Photoshop, ever. You use Photoshop to open your files exactly where you put them in the Apple Finder. And you save them wherever you wish, in the Finder as well. Your images will always reside in the Finder.
You don't import files into Adobe Camera Raw either. You open them in or with ACR.
Of course you need to save your data, not only when you quit the application, but at frequent intervals while you're working on it. Nothing you saved will be deleted by Photoshop. How can you even conceive and ask such a question? ?? !
If you ever try to close a file or the application when you have open, unsaved files, the application will ask you for confirmation in an unmistakable way.
Your images will always reside in the Finder, wherever you put them.
Photoshop does not have the abominable "Libraries" scheme that made me detest Lightroom when I tried it. Nor does Photoshop hide your image files in "packages" like the even more abominable iPhoto does.
Please forget anything you may be accustomed to in Lightroom and/or iPhoto, and approach Photoshop with a fresh mind, respecting it like the granddaddy of image editors it is.
C: Like question A, how much ram do I choose? I have 16GB of Ram in each of my MacBooks.
Again, you don't "choose RAM", instead you select a percentage of dynamically changing Available Memory (not RAM; see above) to allow Photoshop to use. Leave at around 70%.
Please see the following post for an important tip.

How much RAM should be in use while not running anything?

Just for the heck of it, I checked the Activity Monitor with nothing else open to see how much RAM was being used. Much to my surprise, nearly 900MB of my 2GB was being used with literally every application closed except for Activity Monitor. This can't be normal...

My Macbook Pro is also using about 1.3GB RAM with virtually everything shut down (mail, safari, ical, itunes, etc). Yet, my husbands uses only about 400-500MB with the nearly identical applications left running.
I have 4GB, he has 2GB.
We compared the running applications one-by-one, and mine uses nearly double his for the exact same application.
Does a laptop use more memory if it has more memory to use?
This really bothers me. There does not seem to be any reason for mine to be consuming more RAM when running the same small applications as his does yet I can't figure out why?
Ahhhhh!

How much RAM can PS CS4e use in Mac OS 10.5.x?

I've tried to track this down from a number of places, but can't get an answer. I'm assuming the same as CS3e, which is a little over 3 GB.
I'm getting ready to build a new MacPro and I need to decide how much RAM to add initially. I'm a Mac tech, so pretty good at building kick-but systems, but I don't have CS4e yet, so can't figure this one out for myself. I usually max out my systems, but I don't think I can really utilize a full 32 GB of RAM with CS4 suite, but perhaps CS5. No sense in getting more RAM at this point in time, when I could use those dollars for good glass to take more pictures with! ;-)
And FYI, real PS performance comes from using 10K rpm drives for startup/apps and a second one for Scratch.

Jerry,
That's a very important Tech Note. Thank you for pointing it out.
EXCERPT:
Allocating Memory with 64-bit Processors
Photoshop can directly access 3.5 GB of RAM when run on Mac OS (10.4.11 or later). If you have additional RAM on your computer, the RAM above 4 GB is used by the operating system as a cache for the Photoshop scratch disk data. Data that previously was written directly to the hard disk by Photoshop is now cached in this high RAM before being written to the hard disk by the operating system. If you are working with files large enough to take advantage of these extra 2 GB of RAM, the RAM cache can increase performance of Photoshop.
When you run Photoshop CS4 on a 64-bit operating system Photoshop can access up to 8 GB of RAM. You can see the actual amount of RAM Photoshop can use in the Let Photoshop Use number when you set the Let Photoshop Use slider in the Performance preference to 100%. The RAM above the 100% used by Photoshop, which is from approximately 3 GB to 3.7 GB, can be used directly by Photoshop plug-ins (some plug-ins need large chunks of contiguous RAM), filters, and actions. If you have more than 4 GB (to 8 GB), the RAM above 4 GB is used by the operating system as a cache for the Photoshop scratch disk data. Data that previously was written directly to the hard disk by Photoshop is now cached in this high RAM before being written to the hard disk by the operating system. If you are working with files large enough to take advantage of that extra RAM, the RAM cache can increase performance of Photoshop.

How much RAM is really sufficient.

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