Which and how much ram do i need?

[Lion114]

i would like to upgrade my macbook pro 2012 mid with more Ram.

I'm using right now with 4GB Ram and its definitely not enough.

after upgrading the hard drive to an SSD one the computer got much faster.

i don't know how much ram should i get. 8 or 16GB.

I'm using the computer for school,internet,and parallels which is Virtual machine. no more than that. never played games and i don't do graphic designs on my mac..

how much you guys think i need?

and which one you guys think will be better?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LTBJFW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=4UJ9NTB6R2LF&coliid=I25YYI8QR6LAX&psc…



https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KQCOV5C/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=4UJ9NTB6R2LF&coliid=IALIT5ACGOS8Z&psc…



Thanks

 

[KieranDotW]

I have the same mid-2012 MBP and use 8GB. Works fine for browsing, word processing, and graphic design.

 

[BeSweeet]

If buying 16GB is financially doable, you might as well go for it, especially depending how often you use the virtual machine. You can never have too much RAM .

 

[Jnesbitt82]

That first link you posted for Crucial is exactly what I purchased and installed in February 2014. Amazon says I paid $139.99 at the time. Lol

It worked great for my needs. I had external TB monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse while running in clamshell mode. On occasion, I used a Wacom pad with it too.

 

[Lion114]

I also have the mid-2012 13" MBP and I have two 250GB 850 Evo's in a RAID configuration.

You need to have disks of the same size. Otherwise, the size you end up with is 2x the smaller disk size. Really, you should get two disks of the same size and same model - ideally bought at the same time. Manufacturers may change things in a particular model SSD over time. I also think it's best to have two disks that have about the same amount of writes that have been made to it.

While benchmarks may get you close or over 1000MB/sec., for real-world use, you may not notice any difference from what you currently have. The way that RAID 0 works is that it can read/write from both disks at the same time. However, the chunk size they use (I think it's 64K for El Capitan) is such that if your file is under that chunk size, it can only read from one disk anyway - there is no advantage gained, probably a little bit slower because of the RAID overhead. In my case, I have a DVR app where there are a couple of operations which are basically file copy operations and with large (usually 8GB or so) files, it is much faster than running the same operation on my other Mac which doesn't have RAID. I have a MySQL database application where I benchmarked several tasks which takes some time (usually several minutes) and some operations were slower, some faster than my 2012 Mini, which has very similar technology to the 2012 MBP (my 2012 Mini is quad-core but the operations I was running was on a single thread). So I kept that database on my 2012 Mini.

So, you shouldn't get too excited about the RAID possibility unless you have application(s) which can take advantage of how it works.

The question is will you really notice the speed up from 550 to 1000 mb/sec. I sort of doubt it unless you do a lot of large file transfers, or run apps that read in big files. Most applications do not do this.

When I first put an SSD into a 2011 13 MBP it was night and day from when I had a rotational drives. Application launches dropped from 15 seconds to 1-2 seconds.

Then I got a 2015 15" rMBP with a SSD capable of 1.7 GB/sec. And Applications launched in under 2 seconds consistently. But the real life feel between my 2011 13 with the "Slow" 0.55 GB/sec SSD and my new 2015 15" rMBP with the 1.7 GB/sec, was about the same on application launch and even in a lot of applications. Because once you get to a second or so to launch an application, it is hard to notice any further improvement.

So spend the money to go with SSD Raid 0 if you really need the speed for the applications you run. But, I would expect most regular users would not notice the difference.

I have the same mid-2012 MBP and use 8GB. Works fine for browsing, word processing, and graphic design.

If buying 16GB is financially doable, you might as well go for it, especially depending how often you use the virtual machine. You can never have too much RAM .

That first link you posted for Crucial is exactly what I purchased and installed in February 2014. Amazon says I paid $139.99 at the time. Lol

It worked great for my needs. I had external TB monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse while running in clamshell mode. On occasion, I used a Wacom pad with it too.

well I'm not using too much with the virtual machine but i do use sometimes.
which link will be better for me and for my mac by the way?

 

[BeSweeet]

which link will be better for me and for my mac by the way?

They're both identical in terms of specs. The Kingston RAM looks better which is really the only difference, aside from the minor price difference.

 

[Jnesbitt82]

well I'm not using too much with the virtual machine but i do use sometimes.
which link will be better for me and for my mac by the way?

Well, the first one is cheaper and it's Apple Certified according to its description.

 

[ZapNZs]

Because you run VMs and because the price difference between 8 and 16 isnt all that much, I would personally opt for 16GB if it were me. This gives you more to allocate to your guests. I've always used Crucial RAM myself, with very consistent experiences across different platforms.

 

[jerryk]

I think I went with Crucial in my 2011 13 MBP. Worked great. I believe I paid around $75 for 16 GB in 2014.