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MacBook Air 2011 2GB Ram

J

jutt57

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 1, 2015
4
0
Hi all, I just purchased a MacBook Air 2011 with 2GB of memory for about 300 bucks. I wanted to know if you guys thought it was a pretty solid deal and if the amount of ram will be enough for my everyday use? I'm a college student so all I'll really need to use is safari and Microsoft word. Maybe so light Netflixing (not a word) and also some minor GarageBand use. Thank you guys for replying.
 
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IF all you need is safari and a word program then you can probably squeak by. the less you need to process the better, 2011 is the edge. you'll get some time with it before you long for something new.
 
jutt57 said:
Hi all, I just purchased a MacBook Air 2011 with 2GB of memory for about 300 bucks. I wanted to know if you guys thought it was a pretty solid deal and if the amount of ram will be enough for my everyday use? I'm a college student so all I'll really need to use is safari and Microsoft word. Maybe so light Netflixing (not a word) and also some minor GarageBand use. Thank you guys for replying.
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Seems kind of irrelevant what we think since you already bought it.

Just do what you're going to do with it and you can decide if it's fast enough.

I suspect the answer will be yes.
 
Yes, it will work fine. Stay away from chrome and report back on how it performs. :)
 
Thank you guys for replying. I know eventually I will have to upgrade because 2gb of ram isn't enough these days but I've figured it was a good entry level MacBook for the price. Hopefully all works well!
 
jutt57 said:
Thank you guys for replying. I know eventually I will have to upgrade because 2gb of ram isn't enough these days but I've figured it was a good entry level MacBook for the price. Hopefully all works well!
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2GB was working just fine for me last year.
 
You should be fine IMO. The computer may have to swap data at times, but you are not likely to even realize that's happening. If you're used to computers with spinning hard drives, the SSD in the Macbook Air will be a huge speed upgrade. When computers with spinning hard drives have to swap data to disk, they slow way down. Swapping to the SSD is much, much faster.

I had 4gb on my 2011 MBA, but I ran powerful software like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, FileMaker Pro, VectorWorks, etc. I'm sure it was swapping at times, but I never noticed.
 
Thanks for the info. Now from my understanding, I should stay away from yosimite right?
 
jutt57 said:
Thanks for the info. Now from my understanding, I should stay away from yosimite right?
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I was under the impression that Yosemite and Mavericks should run better on 2GB then previous OS's due to the memory pressure feature... but I could be understanding it wrong. Anyways, Yosemite WILL run on 2GB... how well is a different story.
 
jutt57 said:
Thanks for the info. Now from my understanding, I should stay away from yosimite right?
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Nonsense. The mba you bought is barely 4 years old. I works excellent with Yosemite. It will handle everything you throw at it.
 
No idea about Yosemite, I never ran anything but 10.7 on my 2011 MBA. Personally, I like to stick with the same operating system that a computer ships with, unless there's a really compelling reason to upgrade. You know, the "if it ain't broke" theory…. :D That assumes that the software you're running (like MS office) is not newer than the orginal operating system though. In my case, I think my version of office is from 2008.

I'm sure there will be others here that disagree though. And I remember that Mavericks was supposted to make better use of memory.
 
Thanks for all the info guys. I was under the impression that I was receiving a good deal but was a little worried because of the ram. I'm wasnt too familiar with MacBooks but from my understanding Apple's OS allows you to kind of "get away with" small amounts of ram. I know that 2GB of ram on a windows laptop would probably lag more than running Skyrim on an Nintendo DS but I wasn't sure if the same applied to MacBooks. After reading numerous articles, i became more educated with the Mac architecture and how well Apples operating systems run with low ram. You guys have been a big help and I will for sure let you guys know how things turn out. Thank you
 
jutt57 said:
I know that 2GB of ram on a windows laptop would probably lag more than running Skyrim on an Nintendo DS
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I got a cheap Windows laptop running Vista back around 2007 with 2GB RAM, thinking that would be enough because my Mac did fine with 2GB. What a mistake, that machine was barely useable! :p
 
2 gigs are doable for many folks who do not have huge programs they are crunching, they aren't gamers and just stick to the same tasks.

i know someone earlier said you could probably do yosemite, and you might. but once you go to yosemite, it won't let you backtrack, and when I tried it on my 17 2011, it slugged and was awful. It wasn't worth the upgrade, because it was a perfectly fine machine before the upgrade.

someone else said stick with what you have an report on it. for 300, if you got a slice of pie you can eat, keep it. upgrade to what is within your specs and you should be good.
 
MCSN said:
i know someone earlier said you could probably do yosemite, and you might. but once you go to yosemite, it won't let you backtrack,...
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... I didn't know that. You can not downgrade to Mavericks?
 
nope it gives you a notification AFTER yosemite is installed that you cannot go back.
 
jutt57 said:
Hi all, I just purchased a MacBook Air 2011 with 2GB of memory for about 300 bucks. I wanted to know if you guys thought it was a pretty solid deal and if the amount of ram will be enough for my everyday use? I'm a college student so all I'll really need to use is safari and Microsoft word. Maybe so light Netflixing (not a word) and also some minor GarageBand use. Thank you guys for replying.
Click to expand...

You can rest easy since you got a very good deal. People on this site will tell you that 2gb of ram isn't enough for basic usage and it is completely untrue. If you are just surfing, working with Word, iTunes, iPhoto etc, 2Gb of ram will be fine for a few years.

I have a 4gb model and I have to open about 5 times as many programs as I usually use to get my memory pressure out of the green. My workload is similar to yours and I know I would be fine if I had only 2gb of ram.

Enjoy your new machine and don't worry about specs. If I were you I would upgrade to Yosemite but that's just me. You may not want to.
 
Maybe there's someone here in the forums who has done it and can speak of the success or not.

I just remember when I did the installation, it clearly said, you cannot go back once the installation completed. same thing happened on my ipad2 when installing ios8.

But there's probably someone who has done it, and can say it can be overcome. But until you get the green light, keep asking.
 
MCSN said:
Maybe there's someone here in the forums who has done it and can speak of the success or not.

I just remember when I did the installation, it clearly said, you cannot go back once the installation completed. same thing happened on my ipad2 when installing ios8.
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iOS is a completely different story. You can always reinstall old computer OSs.
 
1) You can always go back, at least as far back to the original OS with no problem. You may even go back to an older OS as long as the drivers support. Just have to experiment.

You just have re-format the disk and do the installation from an installer you downloaded earlier as opposed to doing it over the air. Afterwards you can restore your machine from a Time Capsule or any other backup using the Migration Assistant.

2) Maverics and Yosemite run really good on machines with limited RAM because of their better memory management, like memory compression.

I run Yosemite on a 2011 Air with 2Gb RAM with no problem.

After the upgrade, the system may seem to be running slow at first, but this is due to Spotlight doing the indexing. Once the indexing is done (could take an hour or so depending on how much the disk is full), the speed will be back to normal and the machine will work like charm.

I see no reason to not upgrading to at least Mavericks or even Yosemite.
 
I'm not saying its a valid apple threat LOL. It may be an empty apple threat. But they did say it, and i have not the courage to try it.

but if you had such courage, and you wanted yosemite, its worth the look.

at that point, I would go to an apple store and play with yosemite and see if you love it or not to make that jump.

i think it was around a 6gb download. just make a bootable install usb and you should be good to play around with it.
 
jutt57 said:
Thank you guys for replying. I know eventually I will have to upgrade because 2gb of ram isn't enough these days but I've figured it was a good entry level MacBook for the price. Hopefully all works well!
Click to expand...

Just so you know, the memory is soldered on to the logic board. That Air is stuck with 2GB for life. If you want more, you're going to have to get a new machine.

However, it should serve you well for a few years based on what you said you're going to use it for.
 
jutt57 said:
Hi all, I just purchased a MacBook Air 2011 with 2GB of memory for about 300 bucks. I wanted to know if you guys thought it was a pretty solid deal and if the amount of ram will be enough for my everyday use? I'm a college student so all I'll really need to use is safari and Microsoft word. Maybe so light Netflixing (not a word) and also some minor GarageBand use. Thank you guys for replying.
Click to expand...

That seems like a pretty good deal for your needs. What size SSD was in it?
 
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