I research a product for months prior to purchase and yesterday was part of my research into buying a MacBook Air.
I was in an Apple store yesterday and was asking about how much RAM I would need - many people have been telling me to upgrade to 16GB of RAM because 8GB won't be enough. I mentioned this to an Apple employee and he said 8GB would be plenty, and then he showed me something. He said "launch every app that is in the dock on your Mac mini, then fire up Activity Monitor and check the amount of memory that is being used" - I had told him that I had a 2014 Mac mini. I mentioned the amount of Swap used, and he said "Yes, you have Swap, but how often will you be using every app in your Dock at the same time? Swap is always there when you need it." I was surprised that he wasn't trying to steer me to a more expensive MacBook Air just because it had more RAM.
When I arrived home I followed his instructions and was pleasantly surprised to find that my Mac mini was using 3.89GB of RAM.
Why do some folks recommend more 16GB RAM over 8GB without asking about my computing habits?
I was in an Apple store yesterday and was asking about how much RAM I would need - many people have been telling me to upgrade to 16GB of RAM because 8GB won't be enough. I mentioned this to an Apple employee and he said 8GB would be plenty, and then he showed me something. He said "launch every app that is in the dock on your Mac mini, then fire up Activity Monitor and check the amount of memory that is being used" - I had told him that I had a 2014 Mac mini. I mentioned the amount of Swap used, and he said "Yes, you have Swap, but how often will you be using every app in your Dock at the same time? Swap is always there when you need it." I was surprised that he wasn't trying to steer me to a more expensive MacBook Air just because it had more RAM.
When I arrived home I followed his instructions and was pleasantly surprised to find that my Mac mini was using 3.89GB of RAM.
Why do some folks recommend more 16GB RAM over 8GB without asking about my computing habits?