Should I upgrade my ram?

I have a Macbook 7,1. It's a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo with 2 GB or ram. I'm developing apps for the iphone using XCode and I was thinking about upgrading to either 4GB or 8GB. I think I need this because I'm getting beach balled too often. Will upgrading my ram make enough of a difference or is it the Core 2 Duo that could be causing the issue? I'm leaning more towards the ram. Thanks for any info.

Upgrade your RAM as much as you can afford to. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_Whi te
From Wikipedia: Some memory can be stored in physical RAM chips while other memory is stored on a hard drive. This drastically increases the amount of memory available to programs. The operating system will place actively used memory in physical RAM, which is much faster than hard disks. When the amount of RAM is not sufficient to run all the current programs, it can result in a situation where the computer spends more time moving memory from RAM to disk and back than it does accomplishing tasks; this is known as thrashing.

Similar Messages

Should I upgrade the RAM?

I'm working alot in Adobe CS6 at school e.t.c. and home, I'm doing a lot of gaming. Then I read that if Swap used is over 1GB that's a sign that you should upgrade your RAM. I have a 13'' MacBook Pro mid 2012.
I checked activity monitor, and here's the result:
Free: 879 MB
Used: 3,14 GB
Swap used: 1,31 GB

You should upgrade your RAM. Anytime swap space is used, it means you have run out of physical memory and your system needs to use your hard drive as a scratch disk. This greatly slows down performance. Upgrade to 8, 12, or 16 GB:
2012 MacBook Pro 13" 15" – Up to 16.0GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory

Buying a new Macbook Pro for music recording, should I upgrade the RAM or Processor?

As the title states, I'm looking into buying a new Macbook (15 inch) for music recording. Should I upgrade the processor or the RAM memory?

Purchase it with the faster CPU. RAM may be increased later via third party chips at much lower cost if and when required.
Ciao.

I am extremely disappointed with my imac's speed. should i upgrade the RAM?

I bought this lovely machine so that when i come back home, i can push aside my 12" toshiba work laptop and enjoy working on my music and photos and internet browsing on the imac.
the music (ipod +itunes) and browsing works great, but as soon as i get onto iphoto (v5.0.4), it just takes years to get anything done and sometimes it just closes down on me. i have times that colourful round ball rotaing at times for over 40 minutes! i have just 8,000 photos and i just cannot use iphoto at all. also, i'm not all that savvy (or inclined) to try and figure out other softwares - i just assumed that apple's own software and hardware would combine really well in an application that it is really well known for (digital imaging).
so do you reckon it's a hardware issue (RAM or something like that) or that iphoto isn't upto the task? i would use another software for organising the photos if necessary, but i do quite like the way in which iphoto does the organising - when it works.
hope someone out there has some ideas for me!
cheers

Thank you all for the replies! I'm going to work through what each of you have suggested and see how much it helps. The 40 minutes of processing time is not an exaggeration. In fact, it sometimes takes longer than that - but I think it's hanging - so i've forcibly shut down the application.
Al - cheers for your immediate tips - they have certainly helped. I disallowed other shared libraries, dropped the shadow and reduced the photo size to approximately a small thumbnail and the speed has most certainly improved! it still takes a few minutes every now and then, but it's decidedly better.
Dan - I'll try Onyx (first i'll figure out what it is!) to clean things up, i imagine.
Jerry, thanks for the tip on iphoto buddy. i'll certainly try it when i have the time. it'll also help me keep the photos i don't want everyone to see aside, i imagine!
And Rod - these are all jpegs from my NikonD70, i haven't started shooting RAW as yet, as i have to figure out how to process those first! I'll probably upgrade the RAM to 2gigs and to ilife'06 in the next week or two. I'll go through the routine that you suggested for checking for directory corruption as well.
Thanks a lot to all of you! i'm sure i'll be back on track very soon!
cheers,
sidlal

How should i upgrade my ram

i just got a macbook and it only has 1 gig of ram. im not worried about price, so where should i take it to get it upgraded? also, is 2gb my limit?

Those apps are pretty RAM intensive and I think that you will see a jump in performance if you go to 2GB.
One way to see your RAM needs is to open up the activity monitor and look under the "system memory" tab for the number of pageouts. That is the number of times that your RAM has "filled up" and had to write its contents to the HD. Obviously HD access is much slower than accessing the RAM, so that would lead to a slowdown.
The number of pageouts is cumulative since your last reboot, so do not be alarmed if the number is high, but rather if it is large compared to the number of pageins. My Mac has been on for almost 8 days now and I have 104721 pageins and only 1624 pageouts. I have not worked on anything at all for the last week, just browsed the web so those numbers are low, but the clearly show that I have enough RAM for the current usage.

I'm considering getting a retina MacBook Pro, should I upgrade the RAM or the Storage?

I don't want to go over $1,800, so I can only upgrade to 16GB RAM with a 256GB SSD, or 8GB RAM with a 512GB SSD. I will be running a lot of VM's, so I was originally going to go for the first option, with 16GB RAM, but I heard that if you use more than 80% of an SSD's capacity, it degrades more quickly due to the way the wear leveling algorithms work. I'm intending to get at least 4 years of use out of this machine. In summary, which option should I go with? Thanks in advance!

H.S.G.,
go with the RAM. A Retina MacBook Pro’s SSD can (in theory) be replaced if necessary; its soldered-in RAM can’t.

Should I upgrade the RAM, the Processor, and add an ATA/133 card?!

Hello!
I have a few more questions...
I only have 2 internal drives...
(one 300GB which is the main one that runs the applications and one 60Gb used as extra storage mainly for my video projects)
Do I need an ATA/133 PCI controller card for them?
will it really be worth it?
(meaning will it actually make a difference in speed or not?)
or do you only need one of those cards if you have 3 or 4 drives?
also,
would adding more RAM (up to the 2.0 GB limit)
(my comp is currently at 1.25 GB)
make a huge difference?
and the processor...
if i upgrade it to the 1.8 GHz
(it's currently at 867 MHz)
will it be a major improvement?
i guess I'm asking if i would benefit in upgrading
everything:
the RAM,
the processor,
and adding an ATA/133 PCI controller card
or would just upgrading/adding one or two of these be suffice?
I'm seriously looking into upgrading my comp but I want to know
what benefits me and what won't really make a difference
-Cristina-
p.s.
I know I posted this somewhere earlier,
but I'm just so anxious :/
I've been looking at so much information that my head feels like it's going to explode!

Hi-
You don't need a controller card.
If you keep your main drive(s) on the ATA/100 bus (rear carrier), and add (if you like) up to two drives to the ATA/66 (forward carrier) bus, for storage, archives, etc., you will have fine performance from all drives.
If you are going to add a drive, I would add a larger drive to the ATA/100 bus, and move the smaller (60gb) to the ATA/66 position, relegated to storage. Your graphics work (is it?) will then run well on the two drives on the ATA/100 bus.
In a G4, running with maximum RAM (2gb) is always a good performance move, and helps reduce the "spinning beachball", especially with large graphics files. As for "huge difference", not as such, but, RAM is one of the cheapest (especially now) performance buys that can be had, and more RAM is always better than less.
Upgrading to dual 1.8ghz processors would be a "Wow!" type of upgrade, compared to the current dual 867mhz processors. Be advised, that processor upgrades require that you be able to boot to OS 9 prior to installing the processor upgrade. This is to apply necessary "patches" to allow the system to use the new processors. If you don't still have a boot-able OS 9 installed on your machine, you will need to have that ability prior to a processor upgrade.
Another processor upgrade option, would be to change your processors to dual 1.25 or 1.42mhz processors from another MDD. The difference from a 11.25 dual processor, and the dual 1.8, is really between 10-15% increase in performance, with the 1.25mhz providing about 20-25% increase over the dual 867mhz processors. The main problem with this approach, is that there are some modifications that must be made, which aren't the average "do it yourself" type of work.
In the end, though, you may want to take the upgrade money, $600+, sell the MDD, $300+, and put the money on a new Mac. Don't get me wrong, I like upgrades, but it is as much to tinker, as it is to boost performance. And, at the end of the day, I don't need a new Mac. If you don't, either, you will be happy with the upgrades.

So I recently upgraded my ram to 8GB but so far I haven't seen any improvement. I ran some tests and everything turned out fine with the ram. What should i do?

So I recently upgraded my ram to 8GB but so far I haven't seen any improvement. I ran some tests and everything turned out fine with the ram. What should i do?

What is the problem exactly???
See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029
Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?
How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.
Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.
In the Memory tab of Activity Monitor, are there a lot of Pageouts?

Should I upgrade my Macbook RAM, or go to PC laptop?

Hello,
I bought my 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 13" Macbook in mid 2008. Recently I replaced the hard drive (dropping the computer killed the original HD) with another 80gig. It currently has 1 GB of memory. I'm running Snow Leopard.
I used to do film editing on this machine for school when I got it, but no longer. Right now what I do mostly on it is play WoW (very often), use the internet and will be using Photoshop.
It has been quite laggy as of late while playing WoW, and while I realize this is also a Blizzard issue, as many mac users have the same complaints, I know that I should have more than 1 GB of memory. I have heard multiple things about whether or not 3 GB of memory is possible on the Macbook or not. I'd really like to upgrade my RAM before the new WoW expansion comes out, but my questions are:
1. Is it worth buying 2 GB of RAM to upgrade my machine?
2. Is 3 GB of RAM possible or necessary?
3. If neither of these options are a good idea, would be worth buying a PC laptop with 3 or 4 GB of RAM and a bigger HD for half the price of a Macbook Pro? (as a poor intern, I cannot afford to pay more than $600 for a computer).
Thanks for any suggestions.
Message was edited by: redheadtechie (edited title)

Your MacBook may fetch more than you think since new MacBooks lack Firewire.
Go to Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info. Under the hardware description it should say a MacBook x,x value. 1,1 can only be upgraded to 2 GB. 2,1 can be upgraded to 4 GB, but only 3 GB would be usable, And the 3,1 and later can be upgraded to a full 4 GB.
A PC laptop would not be able to run Mac OS X. Furthermore, you'd have to repurchase a lot of software you are running on your Mac for the PC, or see if a crossgrade is available. It may be time to consider alternative software packages that are less expensive for your current Mac, or for a newer Mac if you are tight under budget, or start saving for a newer Mac.
See my FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/usedrefurbished.html
You may find a cheaper MacBook than you think you can.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

I'm thinking about purchasing a 21.5" iMac. The base model comes with 8GB of RAM, and the RAM is not user-upgradeable down the road. Is 8GB enough memory or should I upgrade to 16GB?

I'm thinking about getting a 21.5" iMac which comes with 8GB of RAM. Unfortunately, the RAM is not user-upgradeable. Do you think 8GB is enough memory, or should I upgrade to 16GB? Besides internet surfing and email, I like to play flash games and listen to internet radio. Occasionally, I might want to stream a movie. I would greatly appreciate any advice you could give me.

For what you list, 8GB should be adequate. I ran with 4GB without any issue for over a year in my iMac i7 before I added RAM, primarily for running Win 7 via Bootcamp.
The tasks that need a lot of RAM are typically video editing/production, heavy-duty photo manipulation (not iPhoto or PS Elements), and professional page layout like Adobe Creative Suite. If you think that, down the road, you may want to delve into those fileds with this computer, by all means get the extra RAM.
I like to play flash games
I didn't try a lot of Flash games while I still had 4GB RAM but those I tried ran without issue and without causing a non-trivial number of page-outs

Should I/Can I upgrade my RAM?

I have a 2012 MacbookPro 13 inch, with 8GB RAM. I edit often with FinalCut Pro X, would it make sense to upgrade my RAM to 16GB? I have a 500GB hard drive.

If you have this model, Apple specs state max memory is 8 GB. Crucial and OWC confirm 16 GB max memory:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, mid 2012)
Number of memory slots
2
Base memory
4 GB
Maximum memory
8 GB
Memory card specifications
- Double Data Rate Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module (DDR3) format
- 67.6mm x 30mm (1.18 inch)
- 2 GB or 4 GB
- 204-pin
- PC3-12800 DDR3 1600 MHz type RAM
Additional notes
For best performance, fill both memory slots, installing an equal memory module in each slot.
MacBook Pro: How to remove or install memory - Support - Apple
Crucial's Link:
2012 MacBook Pro 13" 15" – Up to 16.0GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory
Should you?
From Activity Monitor > Memory Tab > Check the number of "page outs" and "swap space" used listed on the bottom pane. If page outs are regularly > 0 and swap space exceeds 1 GB, yes, you definitely should. 8 GB should be enough for your purposes, however.

Should I upgrade to 8GB or 16GB of memory (RAM)?

I've had my laptop since November of last year but lately it seems to be getting slow and constantly loading for no reason. I was thinking of upgrading the processor, but I read that I will void the warranty if I do that so my next step would be to upgrade the RAM. I currently have 6GB installed, however only 5.48GB is usable and almost 2GB is being used by my system with barely anything open. I've had this problem before and I reset my computer to factory default settings, but it seems to not have helped. So I was wondering if I should upgrade the memory to 8GB or 16GB? How much would it help to speed things up on my computer? I would really appreciate the help. Please let me know. Thank you. Here are my computer specs:
dv6z Quad Ed
• dark umber
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• AMD Quad-Core A8-3500M Accelerated Processor (2.4GHz/1.5GHz, 4MB L2 Cache)
• AMD Radeon(TM) Discrete-Class Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
• FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 640GB 5400RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• No Additional Office Software
• No additional security software
• 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (standard)
• 15.6" High Def LED HP Brightview (1366x768)
• FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R)
• Standard Keyboard
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

Does sound like a less than optimized OS install & kind of typical of most factory OEM install machines.
I would download the generic Windows 7 install & give it a nice clean install & setup as will be far more rewarding than RAM upgrade.
I run a probook on 3GB for business/work related use & it is enough & the craze for 16GB of ram is simply a waste for 99% of people.
Do a ram test & hard drive test & ifgood think about a clean install.
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I am considering a base 21" iMac ($1099 @ Best Buy) for home use. It would be my first Mac. Is the base model powerful enough for everyday home use and some light video editing or should I upgrade the CPU, Ram and to a Fusion drive?

I am considering a base 21" iMac ($1099 @ Best Buy) for home use. It would be my first Mac. Is the base model powerful enough for everyday home use and some light video editing or should I upgrade the CPU, Ram and to a Fusion drive?
Purchasing with the upgrades through Apple would add about $800 over the Black Friday deal at Best Buy. Just looking for some advice if I will be satisfied with the based model.

All models will do what you want. Upgraded models will do it faster than the standard models.
Just why are you thinking of switching to a Mac?

Looking to upgrade my RAM to 8 GB, what should I buy?

This is the laptop I recently purchased to keel me over while I build a desktop over the next few months, my last laptop's Hardrive and Graphics Card burned out. Looking to upgrade the RAM from the measly 4 GB to 8 GB but I am unsure of what I should buy or if I can even upgrade the RAM at all. I've done some research through the HP guide to Upgrading Memory but it is very general. Much appreciation for any help.
HP - Pavilion 17.3" Laptop - 4 GB Memory - 750 GB Hard Drive
D8X74UA#ABA
Best Buy listing
http://www.bestbuybusiness.com/bbfb/en/US/adirect/bestbuy;jsessionid=BB68C3D7F6AEFB3F6984D688FCF9CFF...
Just the specs
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03735562&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_r1002_us...
Upgrading Memory page mentioned
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c00820047
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi,
You won't go wrong with the following :
http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/HP-memory/Pavilion+G7-models.html
Good luck.
BH
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Should I upgrade RAM or HDD to SSD on my Mac mini mid 2010?

Hello,
I have a mid 2010 Mac mini with 2GB of RAM. My apps like E-Mail, Safari, Google Chrome and others are starting slow and sometimes running slow. Should I upgrade RAM to 4GB or 8GB or replace my 320GB HDD to SSD?
Thank you yor help, DZetko

You are running a Core 2 Duo. Even a duck has paddling limitations. You are running Mountain Lion on a 2GB machine and it is starved for RAM. The performance is gravitational.
Upgrade your machine via the preceding MacSales link to matching 4GB modules for 8GB. I believe you will be astonished at the improvement. Make certain that you have used Disk Utility to verify/repair your system preferences, and then verify the boot drive while in Disk Utility.
In your login directory (~) go into the Library/Caches folder, select everything in it and move to Trash. Don't bother to empty the Trash just yet. Shutdown your mini.
Now, power on your mini. At the chime, press and hold the shift key until you see a grey horizontal progress bar. At the login window, press and hold the shift key again as you press the right-arrow icon to login. Release the shift key when the Finder menu bar appears. You are now in Safe Boot Mode. Empty the Trash. Reboot normally.
This just did a series of house-cleaning steps for you. It removed and/or rebuilt system cache files, including the Fonts cache. It also rebuilt the database governing the open with ... menu. So, if you had any duplication in there, they are repaired. Safe Boot Mode also does a low-level inspection of your boot drive. You should see some additional performance improvement. I do a Safe Boot Mode about once a month as routine maintenance.
With the improvements I have suggested and preceding pointers, you should have a 2010 Mac mini working as well as it can with Mountain Lion and a SATA II hard drive.

Should I upgrade my ram?

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