A performance question

[Hughm]

My MacBook Pro (late 2011, 4G, running Mavericks) is sometimes fast, sometimes slow. For example, sometimes Filemaker will load in a second or two; sometimes it'll take 10 seconds to load.

What causes these performance variations? It seems like my computer has moods.

 

[kelon111]

My MacBook Pro (late 2011, 4G, running Mavericks) is sometimes fast, sometimes slow. For example, sometimes Filemaker will load in a second or two; sometimes it'll take 10 seconds to load.

What causes these performance variations? It seems like my computer has moods.

When things are cached , they will load faster.

Are you using an HDD by any chance?

 

[Hughm]

I am not sure what "cached" means in the context of applications. Neither am I sure what HDD refers to. I am very stupid as far as the technical/hardware end of things. I'm just curious about why performance seems to vary, while my usage habits/patterns never really change.

 

[maflynn]

It means that OSX will keep the application in memory in case you wish to use it again.

So on those occasions that it starts up fast, its probably been sitting in the inactive ram.