What are the signs you need more ram....

[Bigtree]

In leopard?

 

[72930]

Activity Monitor->System memory

If your Page Outs is greater than Page Ins, you would benefit from more RAM

 

[119576]

When your 'page out's are close to or exceeding your 'page in's

(activity monitor > system memory)

 

[DJAKO]

When you play a lot of beach ball

 

[HawaiiMacAddict]

Aloha Bigtree,

How about when your RAM isn't already maxed out? hehehe

HawaiiMacAddict

 

[Bigtree]

Aloha Bigtree,

How about when your RAM isn't already maxed out? hehehe

HawaiiMacAddict

Now that's the most honest answer yet.

 

[riscy]

When you are using applications and they are very slow to respond - as people have said - beachballing. Opening different apps, eg Neo Office, Firefox, iTunes etc etc, made the computer run very slow.

I upgraded from 512MB to 2GB recently and noticed a massive difference - I can even use XP when I need to now, whereas before it was terminally slow.

If you have iStatPro widget (free) that also shows you how much memory is being used.

 

[iFizz]

Activity Monitor->System memory

If your Page Outs is greater than Page Ins, you would benefit from more RAM

LOL, what's a page out???

 

[CanadaRAM]

When OSX is forced to write memory from the RAM to the hard drive, that slows down the performance of the machine (because hard drives are way slower to respond than RAM). This happens more frequently the more you multitask on your machine (keep multiple programs running at once), and when you use large programs that handle large amounts of data (Photoshop, digital video and audio production, etc).

In your Activity Monitor, the Page Ins and Page Outs are reported. What is important is the ratio between the two, not the absolute numbers.

You are aiming for your Page Out number to be about 10% or less of the Page In number. 5% would be ideal. If your Page Outs start creeping above 20% of Page Ins, it means you are regularly overflowing the available RAM, and getting slow downs. Time to consider a RAM upgrade.

 

[iFizz]

LOL, what's a page out???

When OSX is forced to write memory from the RAM to the hard drive, that slows down the performance of the machine (because hard drives are way slower to respond than RAM). This happens more frequently the more you multitask on your machine (keep multiple programs running at once), and when you use large programs that handle large amounts of data (Photoshop, digital video and audio production, etc).

In your Activity Monitor, the Page Ins and Page Outs are reported. What is important is the ratio between the two, not the absolute numbers.

You are aiming for your Page Out number to be about 10% or less of the Page In number. 5% would be ideal. If your Page Outs start creeping above 20% of Page Ins, it means you are regularly overflowing the available RAM, and getting slow downs. Time to consider a RAM upgrade.

LOL, I'm sorry...I was trying to make a joke, as if to say "I don't have any Page Outs, what are they?" But, I'm sure someone here benefited from that definition. Thanks, and sorry for that...

 

[thejadedmonkey]

In leopard?

If you see a lot of the spinning beach ball, or applications bounce a while in the dock before finally opening up.

 

[TH-Gunner]

I have 2.5GB of RAM, and my Page Outs are 0

I paid $100 for my 2GB stick back in October or September, though

If only I would have waited 2 months...

 

[CanadaRAM]

LOL, I'm sorry...I was trying to make a joke, as if to say "I don't have any Page Outs, what are they?" But, I'm sure someone here benefited from that definition. Thanks, and sorry for that...

...!....

I want my electrons back!

 

[Sogo]

You know you need more ram when you have about 100 bucks lying around. Thats when...

 

[Saliwa]

It is impossible to know when you need ram. Just buy. if your computer is faster, then indeed you needed for ram, if nothing changed, then it was an investment for the future.