Is RAM so important in MBA?

[ntie]

My work computer: MacBook Pro Mid 2010 - 8 GB RAM / 500 GB HDD
My home computer: MacBook Air Early 2014 - 4 GB RAM / 256 GB SSD

I would say both work great but the Air is faster than the Pro. The SSD makes a huge difference.

As far as multitasking is concerned, I think 4GB on the Air is more than enough.

 

[iMacC2D]

Removed.

 

[Saturn1217]

I was looking at refurb MBA on Apple Store, they have them but with only 4GB RAM. My question is how much performance hit is there with only minimum RAM plus super fast SSD, compared to old spinning rust plus minimum RAM.
I know that when RAM is full, the OS creates virtual RAM on the SSD, but now SSD is very quick and I can imagine that would eliminate a bottleneck.

If your question is simply "will I notice if I run out of ram and start paging to the SSD even though it is super fast?" Then the answer is: Yes, you will. I have a 2013 MBA with the 256gb PCIe SSD (very fast) and 8gb of ram. When I am running crappy software that sucks up ram I notice slow downs throughout the whole system just as one might encounter on any other machine.

If you are wondering if you will need more than 4gb of ram to avoid that situation then that depends very much on your usage. For me personally I know that I like to multitask to an almost pathologic level so 8gb was my only option but I'm assuming with lighter workloads 4gb would be fine.

 

[zmunkz]

A swap file on your SSD is way slower than RAM, by 6 orders of magnitude. Check this out:

http://majorbacon.blogspot.com/2014/06/compare-seek-times-between-ram-and-hdd.html

RAM: 3 nanoseconds
Mobile Disk = 12 milliseconds = 12,000,000 ns
Standard Disk - 9 milliseconds = 9,000,000 ns
Server Class HDD = 3 milliseconds = 3,000,000 ns
Server Class SSD = 0.1 milliseconds = 100,000 ns

If you will be doing any games, or running lots of programs at once, or anything "heavy", definitely get the RAM. And remember all future OS updates and software updates will be less and less conservative in their RAM footprint, on the assumption the average consumer's hardware is improving, so I would definitely overshoot now, since RAM is not upgradable in the MBA.

 

[jpn]

not upgradable = max it out at purchase time

 

[GGJstudios]

not upgradable = max it out at purchase time

The OP is talking about refurbs. You don't have an option to max out a refurb.

 

[ntie]

not upgradable = max it out at purchase time

Why should he do that if he doesn't need it?

 

[CausticSoda]

I don't see how any normal to moderate user could live with 4GB RAM.

Well, that would seem to show that you know nothing at all about normal users, computers and their specifications. I am a classic "normal to moderate user". I have a 2013 MBA with 4 Gb of RAM, and never have a hint of a stutter. 4Gb is clearly perfectly adequate for me, and there are very, very many users like me.

 

[richwoodrocket]

Well, that would seem to show that you know nothing at all about normal users, computers and their specifications. I am a classic "normal to moderate user". I have a 2013 MBA with 4 Gb of RAM, and never have a hint of a stutter. 4Gb is clearly perfectly adequate for me, and there are very, very many users like me.

I guess I'm not a normal user then.

 

[deepakvrao]

I know that why i picked my 4 GB MBA
And people kept stating 4 Gb wont be enough in near future
As if next updates of OSX will require 8/16 GB of ram lol
But struggling with only 128 GB of SSD

Same here. My 2011 Air with 4GB RAM is just fine for the RAM. It's the 128GB SSD that I find woefully inadequate.

 

[zmunkz]

Well, that would seem to show that you know nothing at all about normal users, computers and their specifications. I am a classic "normal to moderate user". I have a 2013 MBA with 4 Gb of RAM, and never have a hint of a stutter. 4Gb is clearly perfectly adequate for me, and there are very, very many users like me.

I am sure it is fine for now, but I bet your tune changes when you update to the next OS and definitely the one after. It comes down to the useful shelf life you can get from the thing ... 4GB is fine if you arent a heavy user and can upgrade in 2-3 years.