memory usage

[tildesley]

hi all,

i own a oct 08 white macbook & have upgraded the memory to 4gb, im a windows convert so i was turning it off & restarting it, etc until i noticed putting to sleep is better 🙂

anyway, after a week of putting it to sleep every day etc, ive found that the memory usage in istat shows nearing 70% despite me now having nothing open, now thats near 3gb! below that it does say 2gb is inactive though.

is that normal? will mac-os use all the memory available in theory but then not actually use it?

sorry if this is a stupid question, but im new to mac & im used to windows things....

JT

 

[chrismacguy]

Inactive memory means that that memory has been assigned to a running application, and that application isn't currently using it. I assume that you are using lots of applications and then quitting them. Sometimes, a full shutdown/restart helps. My MacBook (White Early '08) only has 1gb ram, so it still gets shutdown/restarted just to clear this out. If anyone has a better solution, this would also help me, as Im getting tired of rebooting constantly.

 

[tildesley]

yeh thats what im having to do, even with 4gb

i swear im doing something wrong.....

 

[misterredman]

Here is a good explanation on why you should not worry too much about that:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342?viewlocale=en_US