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Should I upgrade to 8GB?

H

hypervish89

macrumors regular
Original poster
I know this subject has been battered to death, i've used mroogle already, so if your going to post to just say that DON'T. Anyways...
I have a mid-2010 macbook pro 13inch which i use to do video editing while on the go. Usually I use my iMac when at home.
Should i upgrade from 4gb to 8gb or should i upgrade the stock 250gb hd ( new hd has to be under $100)?
From which upgrade will I benefit the most? I was looking at getting one of those hybrid drives which have 4gb of flash memory, and the rest regular platter memory.
Any recommendations on a hard drive under $100 or if you vote for the ram any recommendations on that?

Thanks so much!
 
hypervish89 said:
I know this subject has been battered to death, i've used mroogle already, so if your going to post to just say that DON'T. Anyways...
I have a mid-2010 macbook pro 13inch which i use to do video editing while on the go. Usually I use my iMac when at home.
Should i upgrade from 4gb to 8gb or should i upgrade the stock 250gb hd ( new hd has to be under $100)?
From which upgrade will I benefit the most? I was looking at getting one of those hybrid drives which have 4gb of flash memory, and the rest regular platter memory.
Any recommendations on a hard drive under $100 or if you vote for the ram any recommendations on that?

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...

If I were you I'd start monitoring my ram usage while doing your heaviest work. If you still have inactive or free ram than you won't benefit from a ram upgrade.

One thing everyone benefits from is a SSD. I'd recommend you save for that if you don't need more ram.
 
No .... I did and even though I tend to multitask a lot, I rarely have LESS than 4Gb of RAM free ... meaning that 4Gb is sufficient.
 
hypervish89 said:
I know this subject has been battered to death, i've used mroogle already, so if your going to post to just say that DON'T. Anyways...
I have a mid-2010 macbook pro 13inch which i use to do video editing while on the go. Usually I use my iMac when at home.
Should i upgrade from 4gb to 8gb or should i upgrade the stock 250gb hd ( new hd has to be under $100)?
From which upgrade will I benefit the most? I was looking at getting one of those hybrid drives which have 4gb of flash memory, and the rest regular platter memory.
Any recommendations on a hard drive under $100 or if you vote for the ram any recommendations on that?

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...

Seriously?
 
I have read articles that say you will get 20%+ performance improvement from 8GB vs 4Gb. I have installed 8GB on mine, and there is a significant improvement in speed. In my opinion it's the best $100 you can spend for performance. That being said, if you're hard drive is full, and you can't delete anything, then I supposed that would be my first purchase. You could probably do both for about $150 though, which is what I would do.

hypervish89 said:
I know this subject has been battered to death, i've used mroogle already, so if your going to post to just say that DON'T. Anyways...
I have a mid-2010 macbook pro 13inch which i use to do video editing while on the go. Usually I use my iMac when at home.
Should i upgrade from 4gb to 8gb or should i upgrade the stock 250gb hd ( new hd has to be under $100)?
From which upgrade will I benefit the most? I was looking at getting one of those hybrid drives which have 4gb of flash memory, and the rest regular platter memory.
Any recommendations on a hard drive under $100 or if you vote for the ram any recommendations on that?

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...
 
What's the best RAM quality-wise to upgrade to in a MBP? I just got the new '11 MBP, thinking about upgrading to 8GB in the future.
 
I do occasionally run out of free ram. I don't need or want an SSD, I have one on my netbook. I also don't really need any additional space, i have a 2tb ext. hd but i mean i don't mind the extra space either. lol.
 
You are only going to benefit from the RAM upgrade when you are using more than 4GB. Any other time and you have $100 just sitting in there doing nothing. Doing your normal tasks will not be faster.

If you dont need the space and don't want a SSD then there really is no point in upgrading the HD either.
 
SSD>Mem for daily use if you're not doing graphic intense stuff. Crucial is a good brand, I got mine for around $80.
 
hypervish89 said:
I do occasionally run out of free ram. I don't need or want an SSD, I have one on my netbook. I also don't really need any additional space, i have a 2tb ext. hd but i mean i don't mind the extra space either. lol.
Click to expand...

Why are you making a post about this? 8GB RAM upgrades are like $80 or $65 if you shop around and wait for deals. You obviously seem like you want to do the upgrade so why not just do the upgrade? The prices these days are so cheap it's not even worth a debate.

If you are seriously having RAM issues and can't afford $80 - consider closing some unused programs when you hit the 4GB threshold.
 
My advice:

Just get it. It doesn't matter whether you use it or not. Somewhere down the road, some program(e.g, flash) will get you and grow your memory beyond 4 gig. Just get it. Don't worry about what you use your mbp for. JUst get it.
 
jvmxtra said:
My advice:

Just get it. It doesn't matter whether you use it or not. Somewhere down the road, some program(e.g, flash) will get you and grow your memory beyond 4 gig. Just get it. Don't worry about what you use your mbp for. JUst get it.
Click to expand...

He might as well. It's relatively cheap these days.
 
OneMike said:
This is the best advise.
Click to expand...

It is good advice, but for $65 I'd just buy it because there are many things that are going to benefit significantly from the extra ram.

As far as the SSD suggestion, there's a difference between spending $70 on 8GB of ram and $700 on a 320GB SSD Drive.
 
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