Blanket statements are never helpful, I agree. But for the OP's needs I would really recommend the 16GB - fine is people disagree but I run VM's too and I know how fast you run out of RAM...
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Is it necessary to buy a 16gb RAM mbp?
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Blanket statements are never helpful, I agree. But for the OP's needs I would really recommend the 16GB - fine is people disagree but I run VM's too and I know how fast you run out of RAM...
That's massively wide of the mark, plus as I've said above the 16GB upgrade is an obscene £160. Don't know about you, but I don't have that down the back of the sofa in loose change...
How much memory as you assigning to the VMs? A windows client doesn't need more than 2GB, and modern versions of Parallels assign the memory on demand. If Windows is using 1.5GB out of an allocated 4GB to the VM then that's all it takes from OS X. I was happily running three 2GB VMs and OS X 10.9 in 8GB on the 2011 before it's untimely death.
If it's that important surely you can spring the £160 to the OP?
Running Retina adds a RAM tax as all assets are now at @2x resolution.
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I give my VMs 8GB, as I need to run the Windows Phone emulator which itself is a VM taking up 1GB. Plus Visual Studio is running and on and on. So obviously only giving Windows 2GB wouldn't be enough.
If you are giving Windows only 2GB, you're telling me that OS X will run comfortably in just 6GB, which my 15" Retina MacBook Pro uses 5GB at boot with zero apps open. Something doesn't add up here.
My goal is data should never swap to disk. If/when that happens, performance drops off a cliff as the CPU is just twiddling its figurative thumbs waiting for data to arrive.
Indeed. OS X on a MBP requires nowhere near 5GB without any apps loaded. You are misinterpreting the numbers in the activity monitor.
Of course it will. My Mac mini has 4GB and runs just fine, that includes a Parallels VM with a 2GB RAM.
As above - you are reading the Memory stats wrong. OS X isn't Windows.
Depends what you do. My Mac Mini with SSD did have problems with 4Gb. Especially when developing in xCode, there was RAM-related "hangs" here and there.
Now I got MBPr 13 (2015) with 16Gb. Probably can go with 8, but I like to give my Windows 8 VM at least 8Gb as I use it for development with Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc. All this stuff likes RAM and I'm working in this VM 80% of time.
Yes, it is expensive. But for me this laptop is a work tool which I use daily. I figured I need it. Now if I need to start another VM with 2Gb and be comfortable in OSx - I can do it.
But I think if $200 is a breaking point - 8Gb will do. 4Gb - NO. Not for what I do. For web surfing - fine.
Now I got MBPr 13 (2015) with 16Gb. Probably can go with 8, but I like to give my Windows 8 VM at least 8Gb as I use it for development with Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc. All this stuff likes RAM and I'm working in this VM 80% of time.
Yes, it is expensive. But for me this laptop is a work tool which I use daily. I figured I need it. Now if I need to start another VM with 2Gb and be comfortable in OSx - I can do it.
But I think if $200 is a breaking point - 8Gb will do. 4Gb - NO. Not for what I do. For web surfing - fine.
Intel ... they say no.
You'd need a quad core to support 32GB, and then I think Apple would have to configure the logic board as if it had 4 DIMMS installed.
Your Mac Mini is paging out memory to disk, something I want to avoid at all costs.
No, it is not necessary. Yes, it is nice. However, there is a 95% chance you will never use the power of 16 GB RAM even if you are "future proofing" Save money and jut go with the 8 GB.
Open up some applications in OS X with your VM running and you are paging, no screen shots are necessary.
Terrible advice is terrible.
OP is a developer and RAM is non-user upgradeable. It's not "future-proofing", he's going to be using that RAM *right now*.
8GB is fine for a person who does something else for their day job. If you are using this thing 8 hours a day, it's a tool you need to get work done, I don't understand why you wouldn't want that tool to be the best it can possibly be (within reason, no one is saying you must have a topped-out Mac Pro to function).
It's $200 more for a computer OP wants to keep for 4 years. Thats 14 cents more a day. Skip something else you don't really need in your budget for a month or two!
Another thought.
Will the rMBP be your only machine? If you run into a situation where you need more resources for a limited time do you have access to it?
If yes then get 8gig
Myself I have an iMac + rMBP. My MBP has 8gig but I have my iMac should I need more power. I have been considering ditching the 2 PC setup and going with a 15in rMBP+ 4k monitor. Should I do this ill definitely get the 16gig version because it will be my only PC with no access to a more powerful one, and I don't ever want to be lacking.
Now with that said, my 2.6/8/512 late 13 rMBP has never not performed.
Will the rMBP be your only machine? If you run into a situation where you need more resources for a limited time do you have access to it?
If yes then get 8gig
Myself I have an iMac + rMBP. My MBP has 8gig but I have my iMac should I need more power. I have been considering ditching the 2 PC setup and going with a 15in rMBP+ 4k monitor. Should I do this ill definitely get the 16gig version because it will be my only PC with no access to a more powerful one, and I don't ever want to be lacking.
Now with that said, my 2.6/8/512 late 13 rMBP has never not performed.
I read the original post and I still don't believe that 16 GB of RAM is necessary. 8 GB will work just fine.
I'm in the 16gb for virtual machines camp. Two days ago I was running the following apps and checked my memory pressure in Activity Monitor. It was running in the yellow. First time I've seen it do that since I upgraded from 8 to 16.
Mail, Safari (6 tabs), Calendar, Aperture, MS Word, Keynote, Parallels with Win 7, activity monitor, CrashPlan, and a few other minor widgets. When I finished up in Windows I was immediately back in the green on memory pressure.
For most of my usage I could get by on 8gb if I only ran Mac apps. Parallels is a killer if you want a decent sized VM for Windows. If I was buying a new MBP, I'm going with 16gb. My time and frustration level is worth more than the cost of the upgrade.
Mail, Safari (6 tabs), Calendar, Aperture, MS Word, Keynote, Parallels with Win 7, activity monitor, CrashPlan, and a few other minor widgets. When I finished up in Windows I was immediately back in the green on memory pressure.
For most of my usage I could get by on 8gb if I only ran Mac apps. Parallels is a killer if you want a decent sized VM for Windows. If I was buying a new MBP, I'm going with 16gb. My time and frustration level is worth more than the cost of the upgrade.
Yes, blanket statements are bad. I think we can all agree. But you know what else is bad? Running a VM, where the software you use in the VM gets updated, and you don't have enough RAM to support the software, VM, and native OS. It happened to me, on the windows side, and it stunk on ice.
OP, check to see what the max number of VMs you would need to run at once. Then check the software you need to run in these VMs. Finally, do some simply math. You should also add in a fudge factor, because you don't know what will happen in the future. What if you suddenly need 1Gig more in each VM a year from now?
We all know the chest pounders LOVE to talk about how much they can cut the memory close in a dozen VMs they have running in 8 gig of RAM. That's great and all, but do their needs match yours?
OP, check to see what the max number of VMs you would need to run at once. Then check the software you need to run in these VMs. Finally, do some simply math. You should also add in a fudge factor, because you don't know what will happen in the future. What if you suddenly need 1Gig more in each VM a year from now?
We all know the chest pounders LOVE to talk about how much they can cut the memory close in a dozen VMs they have running in 8 gig of RAM. That's great and all, but do their needs match yours?