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Am i really outgrowing 8GB of RAM?
- Thread starter daneoni
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You have a lot of blue ram...and even tho apple claims it won't slow things down....it will. Open terminal and type "purge". It will clear out all the blue memory (its just previously opened applications hibernating, just in case you open them again, to load faster.)
I am still not sure what the difference between wired and used ram is but you have 3 gigs of free ram that is inactive and not being used at all. You should type in purge in the terminal.
You still have plenty of RAM left before its going to use your harddrive.
You still have plenty of RAM left before its going to use your harddrive.
if its the page outs thats worrying you remember thats accumalating until you reset, if you page outs spike that high after a few hours than more RAM might help
Purging memory does not improve speed, contrary to popular belief, as free RAM is simply wasted. Since you have some page-outs, it's possible you may need more RAM, but it's impossible to say without knowing exactly what the circumstances of this screenshot are. Was this after an average day's work, or was this after having the computer powered on for a month, or with RAM-intensive apps that are not normally in use?
The best thing to do is to power the computer down, then start it up and use it normally for about a day, then check the page outs again. Nothing else in there is particularly meaningful when it comes to determining if you have enough RAM.
jW
The best thing to do is to power the computer down, then start it up and use it normally for about a day, then check the page outs again. Nothing else in there is particularly meaningful when it comes to determining if you have enough RAM.
jW
Mal is correct about the free ram is wasted bit and the purge command does more harm then good. The purge command is to be used for debugging purposes, not everyday computing. It can increase the loading times of apps and in rare cases cause kernel panics when it tries to release wired memory.
Agreed. After seeing the list of things the OP is doing....including VMWARE. I think its very wise to move to 16GB
The previous version of Safari had a MAJOR memory leak, and if you let it sit idle for long enough it would consume all of your ram. If you purged it would get the system back to normal. It is completely wrong that purge can cause issues or slow down your system. It is quite the opposite.
That's a pretty common RAM consumption. The more you have the more mac uses.
Here's an example how purge can slow down a system. You open Word 2011 to edit a document. You finish editing the document. You quit Word so that the Word process is no longer running. You then reopen Word, it open in less then one second because it is already in the RAM as an inactive application. You then quite fully Word again. This time you run purge. This clears Word from the RAM. You then go to open Word. Unlike the last reopen, you must wait for it to be loaded from the disc and processed. After a longer wait, it opens.
This example can be used with any process or executable file. in some rare cases the purge command can remove a critical bit of wired memory. Doing so will cause a kernel panic. It can also disrupt programs and executables that have mapped their memory to a location in the ram. The purge command reallocated all the free ram into one place. This can make said program's mapped locations invalid and cause it to crash. Another rare problem when running the purge comman is that when it moves the ram contents around, it could move used/wired ram into a bad part of a ram chip that is normally unused. This of course only happens of the computer had faulty ram.
This example can be used with any process or executable file. in some rare cases the purge command can remove a critical bit of wired memory. Doing so will cause a kernel panic. It can also disrupt programs and executables that have mapped their memory to a location in the ram. The purge command reallocated all the free ram into one place. This can make said program's mapped locations invalid and cause it to crash. Another rare problem when running the purge comman is that when it moves the ram contents around, it could move used/wired ram into a bad part of a ram chip that is normally unused. This of course only happens of the computer had faulty ram.
I understand entirely what is happening. But that is not slowing down the system...only the time it takes to reload an application (I have all SSD so the difference is so negligible.) The exchange for that extra nanosecond saved is the entire system choking up and running like crap. Your logic is flawed.
My logic is only flawed to those who don't fully know what that command does and how UNIX based systems work or to those stuck with the Windows mindset.
The action of reloading the data from the disc can take 5-30 seconds depending on the disc speed and the amount of data being loaded. I know on on SSD equipped iMac it takes it about 45 seconds to load my disgustingly huge iTunes library. But if I quit iTunes and then reopen it, the launch time is roughly 5 seconds.
In addition to what I posted above, it forces running processes to clear out older RAM pages. Most applications like iTunes, FireFox, Chorme, Office suite apps, and Xcode don't like this forced clearing. In doing so one can create a slow down and sluggishness for a few minutes after the command is run. These disadvantages far outweigh the small short term advantages and drastically effect long term computing.
The action of reloading the data from the disc can take 5-30 seconds depending on the disc speed and the amount of data being loaded. I know on on SSD equipped iMac it takes it about 45 seconds to load my disgustingly huge iTunes library. But if I quit iTunes and then reopen it, the launch time is roughly 5 seconds.
In addition to what I posted above, it forces running processes to clear out older RAM pages. Most applications like iTunes, FireFox, Chorme, Office suite apps, and Xcode don't like this forced clearing. In doing so one can create a slow down and sluggishness for a few minutes after the command is run. These disadvantages far outweigh the small short term advantages and drastically effect long term computing.