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What is the best Ram for a mac mini i5?
- Thread starter namelessme
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Thank you for the feedback.
Even though I bought the "Server" edition. it really doesn't spend much time serving up stuff.
I fairly frequently have VMWare Fusion running one VM (Win 7 mostly) and occasionally two VM's, and very rarely three VM's.
right now at 4GB the system gets quite slow with even one running and lots of page out's.
Other than VM's I do quite a bit of Adobe InDesign CS 5.x, some Photoshop CS 5.1/ Illustrator CS 5.x. I don't generally work on huge images in Photoshop so if I don't have much else running then my 4GB seems to be sufficient for that right now.
Other than than, Citrix Viewer, some Java apps (not big memory hogs though), Word processing, Netflix, iTunes Streaming, a few games, but Games aren't my priority.
sorry for my ignorance, I haven't really heard of G.Skill before, are they pretty good quality?
again thank you for taking the time to respond and for the link.
g skill ram has run very well in the many 2011 minis I have upgraded. I have used 40 pairs of the 4gb sticks and 4 or 5 of the 8gb sticks. 1 bad 4gb stick very good sucess rate with the 2011 minis.
Hey everyone.
What is the best program to use to determine if I should have more RAM?
I currently have 4 gigs in my mini.
My main use is Aperture, Photoshop, GarageBand and Logic Pro - and what I am working on can be quite intensive.
But I am wondering - is there a program I can use to see if more might help?
When I look at the built in activity monitor I am not sure if things like WIRED is important. And what is the difference between FREE RAM and INACTIVE RAM?
thanks!
What is the best program to use to determine if I should have more RAM?
I currently have 4 gigs in my mini.
My main use is Aperture, Photoshop, GarageBand and Logic Pro - and what I am working on can be quite intensive.
But I am wondering - is there a program I can use to see if more might help?
When I look at the built in activity monitor I am not sure if things like WIRED is important. And what is the difference between FREE RAM and INACTIVE RAM?
thanks!
free ram is unallocated pages, they hold no data. inactive ram is memory t hat has been allocated for some use, but has not been accessed for a certain period Of time.
as free memory approaches 0, inactive ram will be paged, then swapped to disk.
I'm not sure how deep you want to go into this virtual memory discussion, consider that a very very very short course on it.
as an added note, I am running a pair of corsair 8 gigabyte sticks on my 2011 quad core mini server.
are usually have 1 or 2 virtual machines running with parallels at any given time.
are usually have 1 or 2 virtual machines running with parallels at any given time.
Thank you.
I opened my programs I use one by one and Activity monitor stays around
FREE: 20mb
WIRED: 850mb
ACTIVE: 2.10GB
INACTIVE: 1.00GB
USED: 3.98
That's with only 2 of my programs open. If I open another 1 or 2 of them - the memory numbers quoted stay virtually the same, so I guess the computer is writing off data to the HDD.
I'm ordering more RAM now
Using all your memory is not necessarily a bad thing.
Page and swap activity are the ones that indicate memory shortfalls.
Page and swap activity are the ones that indicate memory shortfalls.
Thanks everyone for the input.
I have the Mac Mini Server (Mid 2011) i7 (Intell 3000HD GPU) and ended up getting a great deal on some 4GB (4x2) Kingston HyperX memory 1600Mhz, CL-9
Link to the same memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104257
and so far so good! I had the following running:
* VM Ware fusion up (Running Windows 7 With Excel 2010, some web browsers, an equation program, notepad++, and a couple other things running)
* Photoshop CS 5.1
* InDesign CS 5.x
* Chrome
* Safari
* Ms Word 2011
* Acrobat Pro
* Some Finder windows
* iTunes playing a 1080p movie
* Duel Monitors
*Activity monitor
* Cirtix session open running through some Java VPN stuff
and had pretty good performance, I didn't notice any lag, and about 800MB free memory, and only about 122KB paged. Boot time is a little faster too.
Anyhow, I would recommend it for other people too.
When 16GB becomes cheaper and has a lower CL then I think I'll upgrade again, but for now this is a little rockin' machine for school work, my job, and personal stuff.
For the price of memory, I can't believe I was hesitant to spend more money to get the extra RAM, my productivity has gone way up and my frustration has gone way down.
I have the Mac Mini Server (Mid 2011) i7 (Intell 3000HD GPU) and ended up getting a great deal on some 4GB (4x2) Kingston HyperX memory 1600Mhz, CL-9
Link to the same memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104257
and so far so good! I had the following running:
* VM Ware fusion up (Running Windows 7 With Excel 2010, some web browsers, an equation program, notepad++, and a couple other things running)
* Photoshop CS 5.1
* InDesign CS 5.x
* Chrome
* Safari
* Ms Word 2011
* Acrobat Pro
* Some Finder windows
* iTunes playing a 1080p movie
* Duel Monitors
*Activity monitor
* Cirtix session open running through some Java VPN stuff
and had pretty good performance, I didn't notice any lag, and about 800MB free memory, and only about 122KB paged. Boot time is a little faster too.
Anyhow, I would recommend it for other people too.
When 16GB becomes cheaper and has a lower CL then I think I'll upgrade again, but for now this is a little rockin' machine for school work, my job, and personal stuff.
For the price of memory, I can't believe I was hesitant to spend more money to get the extra RAM, my productivity has gone way up and my frustration has gone way down.