Some page outs if you've run vmware are nothing to worry about.
It's the number in brackets you want to worry about.
If your machine is running slow, AND the number in brackets (page outs/sec) is not zero, then you need more ram at that point.
Having some paging, when you have applications in the background doing nothing is to be expected unless you are way over spec on RAM. Inactive applications are better paged out to make more room for buffer cache (i.e., if they are paged out, they are still in "inactive memory" and can be reclaimed instantly if more ram is needed).
Seriously, people need to relax, stop looking at inactive memory and total page out numbers and let the VM subsystem do its job.
Worry about the pages/sec while you are working, not the total numbers. Having stuff paged out that is doing nothing while the system is idle is nothing to worry about really.
I mean, for example: i have a 34 gig iphoto library.
After browsing my photos, i have 4.5gig in inactive memory, after quitting iphoto. I also have page outs (i have 8 gig ram)
This inactive memory can be reclaimed as needed. But if i fire up iphoto again, or access the iphoto database from another app, it is already in RAM for future reference...
Dumping all that cache, or having iphoto consume less memory so some idle application (i.e., one that is doing nothing) doesn't need to get paged out would be a net lose.
Fusion will do the exact same thing to try and cache access to your VM's VMDK file, to speed up virtual disk access.
"Free" memory is useless.
