Upgrading MacPro...Memory

Discussion in 'MacBook Pro' started by ShakyJay, Sep 29, 2011.

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  1. ShakyJay, Sep 29, 2011
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2011

    ShakyJay macrumors member

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    #1
    I have a MacBook Pro (mid 2010) I bought the 256gb hard drive model, as it was the one that was in my budget at the time. I absolutely love it, however after playing on my cousins brand new MacPro I am considering upgrading my memory.

    I was thinking about a 500-1tb Sata hard drive and upgrading the memory to 8gb.

    Do you think that this will make the Mac quicker (snappier), and will it help with the encoding of movies? I do a lot of movie making/copying.

    Do you have any recommendations for hard drives?

    I have read a lot of reviews and have done a ton of research on different drives. I am not sure if the 7200RPM will cause a lot more vibration and noise or should I just stick with the 5600? I use the Mac on a daily basis, so noise and heat need to be at a minimum.

    Just basically need someone to give me some recommendations as I am in a sea of drives and need some direction.

    Thanks fellow Mac'ers
     
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  2. wikus, Sep 29, 2011

    wikus macrumors 68000

    wikus

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    #2
    Youre better off getting a small SSD drive only for your OS and applications and using a secondary hard drive to store your data (music, movies, documents, porn, etc).

    RAM isnt going to make any snappier unless you max out your RAM by running many applications at once or heavy documents (100mb+ PSD files, for example and lots of memory allocated to photoshop)

    Btw, wrong forum.

    ----------

    Also, get the 7,200rpm drive. Slower drive won't do you much good, the 7,200rpm drives are significantly faster. Try going for a Western Digital Black. The WD Green drives are OK, I have one and its read/write speeds are around 90mb/s.

    Vibration from them isnt an issue, theyre really quiet and dont produce a mass amount of heat when in use. Vibration is your least of worries (hell thats never even crossed my mind in a mac pro desktop).
     
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  3. ShakyJay, Sep 29, 2011

    ShakyJay thread starter macrumors member

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    #3
    I have an external drive that I store all of music and music (porn is on a different computer-haha). I do a lot of encoding and burning, it just seems like the Mac is not as snappy as it should be or could be.

    I like the idea of a solid state drive but can't seem to find anything within the same/equivalent price range...

    Btw-sorry if this is the wrong forum, kind of new to posting but a long time reader of the forum.
     
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  4. alust2013, Sep 29, 2011

    alust2013 macrumors 601

    alust2013

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    #4
    I'm pretty sure OP is talking about a MBP. Anyhow, you really can't do anything about encoding times. That's all CPU (which you can't change).
     
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  5. snaky69, Sep 30, 2011

    snaky69 macrumors 603

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    #5
    256GB HD makes it sounds like you already have an SSD(I could be wrong). If you "upgraded" your SSD to a 500gb spinning platter hard drive your computer would actually be slower.

    More RAM is only useful if you multi-task a whole lot or run very intensive applications, what are you page ins and outs? You may not even need it, and if you don't need it, upgrading won't make the slightest difference to you.
     
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  6. ShakyJay, Sep 30, 2011

    ShakyJay thread starter macrumors member

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    #6


    No I don't have a SSD now. How do I find my page ins and outs?
     
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  7. heisenberg123, Sep 30, 2011

    heisenberg123 macrumors 603

    heisenberg123

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    #7
    apps-utilities-activity monitor-memory tab

    page outs will reset on a reboot, but it should remain at 0 throught the day if your not running out of RAM
     
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  8. ShakyJay, Oct 3, 2011

    ShakyJay thread starter macrumors member

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    #8

    So I checked it out and it here are my readings:

    VM size 173.74GB
    Page ins: 1.40GB (10bytes/sec-this fluctuates)
    Page outs: 3.47GB
    Swap used: 18.5 MB

    Free: 1.21GB
    Wired: 830MB
    Active: 1.20GB
    Inactive: 791.6MB
    Used: 2.79GB
    .....
    So with those kinds of stats what do you recommend, do I need to clean up my system? Am I running out of memory? What can I do??

    Thanks for the help.
     
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  9. alust2013, Oct 3, 2011

    alust2013 macrumors 601

    alust2013

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    #9
    I'd upgrade to 8GB RAM, you have a decent amount of page outs, so that should help speed it up when you're multitasking.
     
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  10. ShakyJay, Oct 17, 2011

    ShakyJay thread starter macrumors member

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    #10
    Thanks for that! http://www.strontium.biz/products/memory-modules/apple-series/ddr2-4gb-667mhz
    I found these...are they the ones that you recommend?
     
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  11. ilvmac, Oct 19, 2011
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2011

    ilvmac macrumors newbie

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    #11
    I also agree to jack. Strontium has got a wide range of mac memory, all decently priced. I have used one and it is giving me good performance overall. i guess you need to check in their main page and see which one is best suting your Mac and order.(Stronitum apple series)
     
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  12. windowstomac, Oct 20, 2011

    windowstomac macrumors regular

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    #12
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