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More RAM?

D

Doraid

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 5, 2014
9
0
Hello, I looked around the forum and I read the thread by meister and I got 12 on the questionnaire. I mainly use my MBP for studying and research. Mainly run GraphPad Prism, word, multiple PDFs, excel and PS.
The past six months or so, it take a bit for the programs to respond, whether on performing functions or to open.
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010), processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3.
Any input will be helpful.
 
Does your MBP have an hdd or ssd?
Did you monitor the activity monitor during your main workflow and when you experience lag?
 
I run a pretty similar workflow to you at work. If you are looking for a short-term boost in performance moving from 4Gb to 8Gb of RAM will help, but longer term you should really consider an SSD. It really does make those processes run a lot faster as the bulk of the work is in pulling data from the hard drive.
 
Meister said:
Does your MBP have an hdd or ssd?
Did you monitor the activity monitor during your main workflow and when you experience lag?
Click to expand...

It is HDD. I started few minutes ago. So far it shows my physical memory at 4GB and my used memory is at 3.44GB, but in the graph it is a steady green no higher than "swap used" tab.
 
Doraid said:
It is HDD. I started few minutes ago. So far it shows my physical memory at 4GB and my used memory is at 3.44GB, but in the graph it is a steady green no higher than "swap used" tab.
Click to expand...
What OS are you running and who does the cpu graph look like?
Do you have iStat installed to monitor the gpu?
How full is your hdd?

----------
TheIguana said:
I run a pretty similar workflow to you at work. If you are looking for a short-term boost in performance moving from 4Gb to 8Gb of RAM will help, ...
Click to expand...
...no. This is obviously incorrect.
 
I'm running 10.10.2.
This is what I have right now.
No, I don't have iStat.
 

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Doraid said:
I'm running 10.10.2.
This is what I have right now.
No, I don't have iStat.
Click to expand...
You're running Yosemite and it is known not to like hdds very much.
Swap your hdd for a 256gb ssd and put your old hdd in an exclosure for extra storage.

You could of course first try to repair disk permissions and reset pram, but in 2015 soone or later an ssd upgrade is a must.
 
Meister said:
What OS are you running and who does the cpu graph look like?
Do you have iStat installed to monitor the gpu?
How full is your hdd?

----------

...no. This is obviously incorrect.
Click to expand...

4GB is really the bare minimum. Moving to 8GB will help a bit with performance, but nothing dramatic. The more the OS can keep in RAM without having to read from disk will help performance. If want dramatic improvement. Get an SSD. It will feel like a new Mac.
 
Meister said:
You're running Yosemite and it is known not to like hdds very much.
Swap your hdd for a 256gb ssd and put your old hdd in an exclosure for extra storage.

You could of course first try to repair disk permissions and reset pram, but in 2015 soone or later an ssd upgrade is a must.
Click to expand...

All right. Any websites you recommend I should use to buy an SSD for the upgrade? I'll follow a tutorial on youtube or what have you have to install my back up with my data on to the new SSD.

Something like this http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/SSD/Mercury_Electra_3G_Solid_State ?
 
Last edited:
I'm curious about this more ram issue as well. I just recently (about 2 weeks ago) purchased a rMBP 13" (Apple Refurb) with 8GB ram, 512GB SSD and Intel Iris running Mavericks 10.9.5. The one laggy issue I'm noticing is in the Preview App. If I open a photo in Preview and use it's basic editing tools to edit the photo I notice lots of lagginess. When I open up the "adjust colour" panel and use the sliders to adjust things like exposure or contrast not only does the picture take noticeable time to respond but even the sliders don't slide fluidly across the panel. I often get the beach ball as well. I didn't have this issue on my previous 2011 15" MBP with Intel HD3000 and a HDD.
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
I'm curious about this more ram issue as well. I just recently (about 2 weeks ago) purchased a rMBP 13" (Apple Refurb) with 8GB ram, 512GB SSD and Intel Iris running Mavericks 10.9.5. The one laggy issue I'm noticing is in the Preview App. If I open a photo in Preview and use it's basic editing tools to edit the photo I notice lots of lagginess. When I open up the "adjust colour" panel and use the sliders to adjust things like exposure or contrast not only does the picture take noticeable time to respond but even the sliders don't slide fluidly across the panel. I often get the beach ball as well. I didn't have this issue on my previous 2011 15" MBP with Intel HD3000 and a HDD.
Click to expand...
Your problem is not related to RAM.
Never use the preview app do edit photos! It even lags on the nMP.
I use Lightroom for raw files from my D610 and never have any lag.

I dunno why all posters in here constantly think any lag they encounter is somehow related to RAM.

----------
Doraid said:
All right. Any websites you recommend I should use to buy an SSD for the upgrade? I'll follow a tutorial on youtube or what have you have to install my back up with my data on to the new SSD.

Something like this http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/SSD/Mercury_Electra_3G_Solid_State ?
Click to expand...
Yes, use a youtube tutorial and buy the cheapest crucial, samsung or sandisk ssd you can get.
 
Meister said:
Your problem is not related to RAM.
Never use the preview app do edit photos! It even lags on the nMP.
I use Lightroom for raw files from my D610 and never have any lag.

I dunno why all posters in here constantly think any lag they encounter is somehow related to RAM.
Click to expand...

Well like I said I didn't have this problem with my previous 15" non-retina MBP. I now get the beach ball just moving the slider one way or the other let alone the picture responding to the command. In my old MBP I had a HDD and later an SSD and 8GB ram and never had this issue.
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
Well like I said I didn't have this problem with my previous 15" non-retina MBP. I now get the beach ball just moving the slider one way or the other let alone the picture responding to the command. In my old MBP I had a HDD and later an SSD and 8GB ram and never had this issue.
Click to expand...
I know. It seems to be a common problem.
Don't use preview. Use Lightroom!
 
Meister said:
I know. It seems to be a common problem.
Don't use preview. Use Lightroom!
Click to expand...

I don't want to pay money for an App I will use only a once in a while. I do have Pixelmator. Will that work? Also if this is a common problem then why doesn't Apple fix it? Is this an issue in Yosemite?
 
Meister said:
No.

----------

No.

----------

Probably.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, I've been the IT sector for almost 30 years and have been responsible for purchasing and setting up and maintaining literally hundreds of computers, both PCs and Macs. I currently run a tech support company. You can dogmatically answer "NO" all you want, but your'e wrong, period.
 
phpmaven said:
With all due respect, I've been the IT sector for almost 30 years and have been responsible for purchasing and setting up and maintaining literally hundreds of computers, both PCs and Macs. I currently run a tech support company. You can dogmatically answer "NO" all you want, but your'e wrong, period.
Click to expand...
No, I am not. ;)
 
phpmaven said:
With all due respect, I've been the IT sector for almost 30 years and have been responsible for purchasing and setting up and maintaining literally hundreds of computers, both PCs and Macs. I currently run a tech support company. You can dogmatically answer "NO" all you want, but your'e wrong, period.
Click to expand...

Actually in this case, he's not.

I've ran Yosemite on 2GB of RAM (I have a stock early '09 white Macbook as my spare mac. Apple says it will run on it, and it does!).

MBAs come with 4GB by default and run Yosemite just fine.
So you said...

phpmaven said:
4GB is really the bare minimum.
Click to expand...

And Meister said

Meister said:
No.
Click to expand...

It isn't. It will run on 2, and once everything is loaded up, it runs just fine. So Meister is correct.

Next one

You said

phpmaven said:
Moving to 8GB will help a bit with performance, ...
Click to expand...

and Meister said

Meister said:
No.
Click to expand...

So lets look at some evidence...

The evidence we need has actually been provided by the OP..

attachment.php


OK What I'm interested here is the swap used.. 2.3MB.. That's megabytes, not gigabytes. In other words 2/3 of didly squat.

So we have green memory pressure and almost zero paging... So the memory isn't the issue here... Meister is correct again.


Lastly.

You said.

phpmaven said:
Get an SSD. It will feel like a new Mac.
Click to expand...

and Meister said

Meister said:
Probably.
Click to expand...

Here we have some consensus. Meister is being cautious as there is always the YMMV factor, but in essence you're broadly in agreement, and so am I. My practical experience with SSDs is they make the world of difference.

I get bloody annoyed when someone spouts off about how they've been in xxx industry for yyy years or they have zzz qualification and they know it all, and then proceed to talk a load of bollocks because they've not reviewed the evidence. When you want to be taken as an authority, check the evidence before making a diagnosis.
 
I am a tad bit confused. Does that mean upgrading to SSD could help but there is a chance it will not be that different?
 
Doraid said:
I am a tad bit confused. Does that mean upgrading to SSD could help but there is a chance it will not be that different?
Click to expand...

No, it means that the SSD will give you the biggest single performance upgrade.

The effects of SSD are noticeable immediately, while it's less so with RAM.

With an SSD, your Mac will boot up within 11 seconds. Apps will launch instantly. More RAM can't do that, but an SSD will.

In fact, if you only upgrade your RAM, the probability is very high that you won't see any difference. If you upgrade to SSD, there will be a night and day difference immediately.
 
yjchua95 said:
No, it means that the SSD will give you the biggest single performance upgrade.

The effects of SSD are noticeable immediately, while it's less so with RAM.

With an SSD, your Mac will boot up within 11 seconds. Apps will launch instantly. More RAM can't do that, but an SSD will.

In fact, if you only upgrade your RAM, the probability is very high that you won't see any difference. If you upgrade to SSD, there will be a night and day difference immediately.
Click to expand...

All right. Thanks a bunch Meister and yjchua95 and the rest of the posters.
I'll be ordering an SSD by tomorrow and upgrade it hopefully by next week.
 
Doraid said:
All right. Thanks a bunch Meister and yjchua95 and the rest of the posters.
I'll be ordering an SSD by tomorrow and upgrade it hopefully by next week.
Click to expand...

you won't be dissapointed with SSD, we have the same 2010 13" Mbp and just replaced it SSD and it flies now even with VMware fusion installed.
 

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vince22 said:
you won't be dissapointed with SSD, we have the same 2010 13" Mbp and just replaced it SSD and it flies now even with VMware fusion installed.
Click to expand...

How on earth are you getting those speeds on a 2010 (SATA 3Gb/s) Mac?? I am not getting more than 300 Mb/s in my 2010 Mac mini.
 
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