For those of you who have owned or currently own a 13in MBP with 16gb of RAM, what kinds of ways do you use all that RAM? Do you ever regret opting for the extra RAM? Anyone with 8gb and wish they had more? I'm currently deciding between 8gb and 16gb on a non-tb 13in MBP, and would appreciate any advice on the dilemma.
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How do you use 16gb RAM on a 13in MBP?
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VMware Fusion on an 8 GB machine is a little bit tight. I wouldn't really want to give a VM more than 2 GB and I'd worry about running more than 1 VM at a time. With 16 GB, I can comfortably allocate 4 GB to each VM and easily run 2 VMs at once without really compromising the underlying macOS host environment.
This is a pretty good way to start a flame war. Not such a good way to decide how much RAM you need.
Up to you of course, but if you're really interested in advice, you should state how you use or plan to use your new MBP, what software you regularly use or plan to use, etc.
Up to you of course, but if you're really interested in advice, you should state how you use or plan to use your new MBP, what software you regularly use or plan to use, etc.
I wanted to leave it open-ended because I'm wondering if there are uses for 16gb that I have not thought of. Personally, I'm hoping to run SolidWorks through Parallels, but if 8gb isn't enough for that, then I would just use Bootcamp. So if anyone has any experience with Solidworks on a 13in MBP, I would greatly appreciate hearing about your experience.
I'm also planning to use Matlab, Excel, Word, opening a few textbook-sized pdfs at once, up to 20-30ish tabs on safari, and some occasional C++ and Python. I wouldn't think that these are RAM-hogs, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.
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If you've never thought about it... you probably don't need it.
If you need it (VM, very large Photoshop files etc) you'll likely already know you need it... because if you're on a sub-16GB machine you'll have hit that dreaded laptop-freaks-out-and-you-pray-it-saved moment a few times.
If you need it (VM, very large Photoshop files etc) you'll likely already know you need it... because if you're on a sub-16GB machine you'll have hit that dreaded laptop-freaks-out-and-you-pray-it-saved moment a few times.
I have heard this, but I've always wondered about what it means. How exactly does macOS utilize the extra RAM?
2015 MBP Broadwell Core i5 with 8 GBs of RAM. I have two Windows VMs with Windows 10 and 7. It depends on what you are doing and I don't always run both. I use both for documentation and support. To be honest, for what I do which is live in a web browser, iTunes, managing my modest photo library, occasional dive in Photoshop CS6, 8 GBs is more than enough. I have been using an HP Z210 Workstation with 8 GBs of RAM for years and it never slowed me down. If you plan on working 4k Video, process large data sets, maybe like run a Docker container with SQL Server Linux, have Photoshop and a couple Windows VMs running simultaneously, then the 16 GB of RAM will be handy. As a form of future proofing, you can never have enough RAM.