Do I need more RAM?

[pcgeek12345]

I use my Macbook every day for school and website work using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Photoshop CS4, and Bridge CS4 on a daily basis. I have noticed that Lion is a RAM hog, as well as Safari. I would think that 4 GB would be more than sufficient. In the screenshot below, I have Safari, iTunes, and my connection manager for my air card open and I have 13 MB of ram free. I am getting beachballs constantly. Coming from a PC, I know how a system acts when it needs more RAM, but I’ve not really experienced a lot of slowdown.

This is my first Mac, so let me know if I am doing something wrong, or have any tips for improving the memory usage of Lion.

I am using an Early 2011 MBP with the 2 GhZ Quad Core i7 processor and the standard Intel Graphics Card.

So, do I need to add more RAM?

Thanks.

 

[mape2k]

I think you forgot to attach the picture.

Anyway, check your Page out value in the Activity monitor under System memory. If this value increases during your use (~1GB and more), you would probably benefit from having more RAM.

Regardless of the outcome, the constant beach balls suggest that you are indeed running out of memory.

 

[GGJstudios]

In the screenshot below, I have Safari, iTunes, and my connection manager for my air card open and I have 13 MB of ram free. I am getting beachballs constantly.

You didn't attach a picture, but there's more to it than just free memory.

Launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

Your beachballs may not have anything to do with RAM. Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). Then look to see what may be consuming system resources.

Performance tips for Mac OS X

 

[Mikesus]

I recently purchased a late MBP i5 with 4gb. I was getting beachballs when I had parallels (trial) running and sometimes just when time machine was running, but the page outs were < 1gb. I deferred to the "experts" that it must be something else.

Well, Newegg had a package deal with 8gb and a copy of parallels for $80. I bit.

FF to today after adding the ram. I have 0 page outs, and in general it seems snappier, and the video of course got bumped to 512.

Did I need it according to the "experts"? No. Did it help? Yes. YMMV.

 

[aCondor]

Some extra RAM never hurts. And it is pretty cheap.

 

[Steve.P.JobsFan]

Some extra RAM never hurts. And it is pretty cheap.

Newegg has one heck of a deal.

8GB G.SKILL RAM (2 4GB chips) for $50. That's INSANE! I've never used G.Skill RAM, but it's worth a shot for $50.

[URL="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231472"]Newegg.com SHELL SHOCKER: G.SKILL 8GB RAM[/URL]

 

[Schtumple]

I have 6GB of RAM and still get 1gb+ of Page Outs under heavy use, more RAM is NEVER a bad thing.

 

[saberahul]

I'd suggest the 8GB for you. Anyways, I've attached my screenshot as well since everyone else is doing it