Air 11" Question - Only surfing, some office and limited MainStage use - how much RAM

[berndkiltz]

Hey Everybody, I know there are a TON of threads about 4GB or 8GB of Ram, BUT - I have just 2 usages for the air I want to know if it works... without freezing and beachballin all the time.
I have a shiny new iMac Retina shipping to me, so the air is just my on-the-road and couch machine for:

- Surfing, Pages, email from the Couch or on the road (which i know 4GB are enough)

- Apple MainStage. I will NOT use any Samples, just realtime processing of my Guitar with Apple Floorboard stuff and a Third Party Plugin (BIAS or Guitar Rig) and process my Voice with a little compressor at the same time. I can do 3 Times that on my actual 13" Macbook Pro Late 2011.

I don't care about multitasking a lot with the sweet little thing. I don't mind closing all other apps when using MainStage. So what do you think?

Will the BASELINE Air 11" handle that? Or do I REALLY need to upgrade ram / SSD?

The Air will really not do anything else, really

 

[GGJstudios]

The baseline MBA can easily handle the workload you described with 4GB of RAM.

 

[Meister]

Nur dafür brauchst du keine 8gb. Ich würde abwarten was Saturn und Medimarkt an black friday deals anbieten. MediaMarkt hatte vor ein paar Monaten den 19% Mwst rabatt. Da kriegt man das baseline 11" nachgeschmissen!

Viel Spaß damit!

----------

The baseline MBA can easily handle the workload you described with 4GB of RAM.

In short, no 8gb needed.

 

[motrek]

Nur dafür brauchst du keine 8gb. Ich würde abwarten was Saturn und Medimarkt an black friday deals anbieten. MediaMarkt hatte vor ein paar Monaten den 19% Mwst rabatt. Da kriegt man das baseline 11" nachgeschmissen!
...

Deutschland hat jetzt Black Friday? ... Thanksgiving auch? LOL

 

[Meister]

Deutschland hat jetzt Black Friday? ... Thanksgiving auch? LOL

Yes, last year they had hblack friday sales all over the place.

 

[berndkiltz]

Thanks for the info!

 

[djfirth]

Honestly, I've not ever had a problem with any of my Macs running 4G of RAM. My wife's several year old MB is running Mavericks fine with 4G. I did load up my 2012 MBA with 8G to help with video processing, but I expect that I didn't really need the extra RAM.

 

[richfromroch]

I have a Sept/2013 13-inch MBA with 8GB. Activity monitor says I'm using 4.41 of the 8 with Safari, Mail, Pages and, of course, Yosemite running. Not sure how accurate or informational this is, but why skimp? The 8GB option is 100 bucks and if that breaks the bank, maybe you should wait on this purchase. Oh, my main box is a mid-2011 Mac Mini 2.5 GHZ I-5 with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB Crucial MX100...very snappy machine with Yosemite.

Rich
Rochester, NY

 

[motrek]

I have a Sept/2013 13-inch MBA with 8GB. Activity monitor says I'm using 4.41 of the 8 with Safari, Mail, Pages and, of course, Yosemite running. Not sure how accurate or informational this is, but why skimp? The 8GB option is 100 bucks and if that breaks the bank, maybe you should wait on this purchase. Oh, my main box is a mid-2011 Mac Mini 2.5 GHZ I-5 with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB Crucial MX100...very snappy machine with Yosemite.

Rich
Rochester, NY

OS X will try to use all available memory. Just because you're using ~5 out of 8GB doesn't mean things wouldn't run just as well with 4GB.

 

[richfromroch]

OS X will try to use all available memory. Just because you're using ~5 out of 8GB doesn't mean things wouldn't run just as well with 4GB.

Yes, probably true. But I'd rather spend a hundred bucks than take any chances that Apple will keep future OS and APPs running nice and tidy in 4 gigs. I see it as an investment, not a waste of money. But, hey, I already spent the hundred bucks on my 2013 MBA and a good investment it was.

Rich

 

[Scepticalscribe]

To be perfectly honest, for the purposes which you have stated in your OP, you do not need 8 GB RAM. As others have already said, 4 GB RAM will be more than perfectly adequate for your needs.

However, should the cost of upgrading be relatively pain free - in other words, if cost is not the deciding factor in coming to a decision, 8 GB RAM is very nice, because - while it may not add a huge amount tot he value of the machine should you wish to sell it in the future, it will undoubtedly serve to 'future proof' it to a somewhat greater extent.

 

[Meister]

To be perfectly honest, for the purposes which you have stated in your OP, you do not need 8 GB RAM. As others have already said, 4 GB RAM will be more than perfectly adequate for your needs.

However, should the cost of upgrading be relatively pain free - in other words, if cost is not the deciding factor in coming to a decision, 8 GB RAM is very nice, because - while it may not add a huge amount tot he value of the machine should you wish to sell it in the future, it will undoubtedly serve to 'future proof' it to a somewhat greater extent.

While more memory is never a bad thing, the future proving argument can be applied to every spec.
It looks like in the future the bottleneck might be more the gpu.

Get what need now and enjoy

 

[flowrider]

This question is being asked over and over and over again:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1771470/

Check out post #7 of the above referenced thread.

And, the same folks are responding with the same answers over and over and over again.

Kinda Boring

Lou

 

[flur]

While more memory is never a bad thing, the future proving argument can be applied to every spec.

The rub is that memory can't be updated later, so if you buy too little, there's not much you can do.

 

[motrek]

The rub is that memory can't be updated later, so if you buy too little, there's not much you can do.

You could say that about any of the possible upgrades, so might as well get all of them, right?

If you need more RAM later you can sell the computer and buy a different one. The market for used Apple kit is very active.

 

[Meister]

The rub is that memory can't be updated later, so if you buy too little, there's not much you can do.

Same goes for pretty every other part of your macbook.

 

[motrek]

Same goes for pretty every other part of your macbook.

Jinx.

 

[flur]

Same goes for pretty every other part of your macbook.

Last I checked, you could upgrade your hard drive later. Has that changed?

 

[motrek]

Last I checked, you could upgrade your hard drive later. Has that changed?

The drive isn't soldered on but it's tough to find new/bigger ones.

 

[macnewbieee]

as a secondary machine with only office and surfiing, 4gig will do the job well.

 

[stempsons]

i have '13 rmbp with 16gigs of ram, and a '14 mba with 8gigs. both feel equally fast with a decent amount of programs running. my wife has a '14 mba with 4gigs and it does get the beachball when working with several programs at the same time. the interesting thing (as already stated) is that OS X will use as much memory as it can. if you have 16gigs, over time you'll notice that the operating system will try to utilize whatever is available. i'm very impressed with this operating system for that reason, unused memory is wasted memory..