Will SSD stop beachballs?

[whitedragon101]

I run a lot of Safari Windows and apps. My system beachballs all the time even though I have 8GB RAM. I suspect its because for some reason OSX loves using the swap file even with RAM available.

Has anyone had experience of switching to SSD, does it stop the beach-balling?

 

[riptideMBP]

i don't want to flat out say yes, considering there could be other variables at play, but on my system I noticed a moderate decrease in beachballs moving from 5400rpm to 7200 and then a near elimination of them when i returned the 7200 for an SSD.

 

[bozz2006]

It depends on the reason behind the beachballing. It won't cure beachballs any more than having kids cures a married couple that don't like each other. If there are problems related to the OS installation, they'll be there whether it's installed on a HDD or an SSD.

I think you should figure out what's causing the beachballs first. Beachballs aren't the problem; they're a symptom of the problem. Could very well be that the problem is your HDD, but that's something you'll have to figure out.

If you've got 8GB of RAM, it's hard to believe it's a page-outs issue. Have you run a disk-check to see if your HDD is healthy?

 

[satchow]

Beach balls would make me pull my hair out when I had an HDD. It was HORRIBLE. Then I got an SSD and I dont think I've been beach balled since.

 

[whitedragon101]

If you've got 8GB of RAM, it's hard to believe it's a page-outs issue. Have you run a disk-check to see if your HDD is healthy?

Disk utility -> verify = says disk ok

Swap file = 8.4gb / 9.0gb
Page ins = 9 million
page outs = 3.3 million

Ram = 1.65gb wired, 3.92gb active, 1.42gb inactive, 0.99gb free

 

[riptideMBP]

your active is a bit on the high side and is probably the reason for all the page outs. do you have anything besides safari open that might account for high usage?

 

[ratzzo]

your active is a bit on the high side and is probably the reason for all the page outs. do you have anything besides safari open that might account for high usage?

Yeah I agree. Beachballing is probably occurring to you because of a memory hog program which is doing an excessive amount of page ins with the hard drive. For 8GB RAM, having 1/3 of page ins seems a bit high. I have 8GB RAM and to put an example, at the moment my system looks like this (MBP Lion, though not all that different from SL):

Page in - 21.87 GB
Out - 4.8 MB
Swap: 22 MB

Free 4.79GB; Wired 1.11GB; Active 1.60GB; Inactive 518MB; used 3.20 total.

Are you running many applications simultaneously, use Safari as your main browser, ...?

 

[whitedragon101]

your active is a bit on the high side and is probably the reason for all the page outs. do you have anything besides safari open that might account for high usage?

Activity Monitor (real memory usage)

Safari = 2.27gb
Safari (flash plugin) = 227mb
Chrome = 198mb
Netbeans = 190mb
Skype = 97mb
Open office = 90mb
Mail = 87mb
VLC = 83mb
Finder = 78mb
Steam = 72mb
Text Edit = 48mb
ICal = 41mb
Preview = 40b

The rest is nominal system processes.

 

[whitedragon101]

Are you running many applications simultaneously, use Safari as your main browser, ...?

I run a lot of things simultaneously. The above is a very light workload.

Normal is:

Safari 20 windows 60 tabs
Chrome 5 windows 30 tabs
Dreamweaver 8 tabs
Open Office 6 docs
Text Edit 5 docs
iCal
VLC
iTunes
Mail
Skype

with occasional iPhoto, steam, photoshop

 

[greythorne]

Activity Monitor (real memory usage)

Safari = 2.27gb
Safari (flash plugin) = 227mb
Chrome = 198mb
Netbeans = 190mb
Skype = 97mb
Open office = 90mb
Mail = 87mb
VLC = 83mb
Finder = 78mb
Steam = 72mb
Text Edit = 48mb
ICal = 41mb
Preview = 40b

The rest is nominal system processes.

get rid of Safari!! it's a memory hog!!

2.27gb? Safari is a joke!

 

[Synergie]

20 Safari windows and 60 tabs open at once!???? I have a hard time keeping track of 4 things open at once!! Why so many things open at the same time? You can't possibly concentrate on that many things at once!

 

[whitedragon101]

20 Safari windows and 60 tabs open at once!???? I have a hard time keeping track of 4 things open at once!! Why so many things open at the same time? You can't possibly concentrate on that many things at once!

I have various projects going on at once usually so I use spaces and leave them open so I can quickly flip to them. For web development I may need 10 -12 tabs just to monitor the database and CPanel of just one site.

This is why I am thinking that maybe an SSD will reduce the beachballs. I have seen others that simply opened a terminal and turned off the page file so OSX has to use real memory. But that sounds a little risky if memory runs out.

 

[vitzr]

The nature of my work requires I use a lot of tabs for research. Usually i have 60 + open. My new 8GB SSD BTO MBP only displays beachballs in Safari. Therefore, my browser of choice is the latest rev of Opera 11.xx. Next best and a very close second is Chrome. Both of these two are updated very frequently. Opera has improved dramatically over the last six months and I couldn't be happier.

Hopefully this helps you

 

[bozz2006]

Like others have suggested, with that amount of browser tabs, I wouldn't be using Safari. It just doesn't manage memory worth a poop. An SSD would help. Big help.

 

[whitedragon101]

The nature of my work requires I use a lot of tabs for research. Usually i have 60 + open. My new 8GB SSD BTO MBP only displays beachballs in Safari. Therefore, my browser of choice is the latest rev of Opera 11.xx. Next best and a very close second is Chrome. Both of these two are updated very frequently. Opera has improved dramatically over the last six months and I couldn't be happier.

Hopefully this helps you

Like others have suggested, with that amount of browser tabs, I wouldn't be using Safari. It just doesn't manage memory worth a poop. An SSD would help. Big help.

Thats very interesting. I never considered that Safari would have poor memory management as Apple make the OS as well you'd think they'd be better at it than anyone.

Thanks for the heads up.


I think I'll do a head to head test and see what happens. I'm going to open a lot of identical tabs and windows in:

Safari
Chrome
Firefox
Opera

I will report back here on memory usage. Could prove interesting

 

[negativzero]

Disk utility -> verify = says disk ok

Swap file = 8.4gb / 9.0gb
Page ins = 9 million
page outs = 3.3 million

Ram = 1.65gb wired, 3.92gb active, 1.42gb inactive, 0.99gb free

There is something wrong with what you got. With at least 2 gigs of unused ram, your MacBook should not be swapping or paging out that much.
What I suggest you do first is disable paging on SL or Lion whichever one you're using first in order to force the system to use all available ram.

 

[whitedragon101]

There is something wrong with what you got. With at least 2 gigs of unused ram, your MacBook should not be swapping or paging out that much.
What I suggest you do first is disable paging on SL or Lion whichever one you're using first in order to force the system to use all available ram.

My thoughts exactly. I find it very strange that SL just loves the page file. It starts piling things in there will loads of RAM free. I'm just not sure how OSX will react to turning off the page file completely (i.e if it will do anything nasty or corrupting).

 

[whitedragon101]

I performed the head to head test.

Method

Restart the MBP (8gb RAM, SL) with only a couple of default programs running (skype, mail, textedit). Copy and paste links into the browser then measure the RAM and swap usage.

Webpage load = 9 windows 56 tabs

Results

1st Place
Firefox
531mb RAM

2nd Place
Safari
794mb RAM

3rd Place
Opera
859mb RAM

4th Place
Chrome
1547mb RAM


Notes : No real page file use was measured. Chrome memory usage was much higher as each tab had its own sand-boxed renderer using between 30-40mb per tab.

Strangely this is the exact set of tabs that Safari required 2.27gb before the reboot (I had not rebooted for a few weeks). I think after a while memory garbage collection gets confused and gives up.

 

[bozz2006]

That won't quite get to the heart of the matter. Safari's issue is a memory leak (or more specifically a memory suck). Over time it just keeps chomping more and more and more of your memory.

If you close safari (I mean actually shut down the application) every time you use it, and if you reboot your system every day you'll mitigate the problem. But if you have many windows and many tabs, and you rarely shut down Safari, and if you even more rarely reboot your system. Well....

 

[Vader]

If you are opening and closing a lot of tabs, I think Safari caches everything. Using Chrome may help this since each tab is its own thing and will give you back ram when you close a tab.

 

[whitedragon101]

That won't quite get to the heart of the matter. Safari's issue is a memory leak (or more specifically a memory suck). Over time it just keeps chomping more and more and more of your memory.

If you close safari (I mean actually shut down the application) every time you use it, and if you reboot your system every day you'll mitigate the problem. But if you have many windows and many tabs, and you rarely shut down Safari, and if you even more rarely reboot your system. Well....

Yes that was my note at the bottom :

"Strangely this is the exact set of tabs that Safari required 2.27gb before the reboot (I had not rebooted for a few weeks). I think after a while memory garbage collection gets confused and gives up."

I think a test for the long term memory management of Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera may take a bit more time. I think I'll just try using each for a week or so, check how much memory its using restart and then see the difference for the same tabs.

Is this known to be an issue with just Safari or is it OSX itself than doesn't clean up the memory for any program?

 

[negativzero]

My thoughts exactly. I find it very strange that SL just loves the page file. It starts piling things in there will loads of RAM free. I'm just not sure how OSX will react to turning off the page file completely (i.e if it will do anything nasty or corrupting).

turning off the page file is awesome, i've got mine turned off and my MBP is faster cus it doesn't need to retrieve stuff from hard disk all the time.

 

[whitedragon101]

Restarting and launching the same apps gets rid of the swap file and cleans up the memory. But there is the hassle of closing and opening everything as it was. Does restarting with resume in Lion give you a fresh RAM profile like a normal restart?

 

[Ronnoco]

Guys, if someone could answer this question I'd be very appreciative.
What are "stuck processes"?
My 15" i5 MBP is reporting 79 processes: 2running, 3 "stuck", 74 sleeping with 401 threads...

 

[holmesf]

To inject a little bit of technical knowledge into the thread:

Mac applications are centered around something called the "run loop". The run loop handles input which comes from timers, mouse clicks, key presses, etc, passes control the application which typically does some computation and then passes control back to the run loop. The "beach ball" appears whenever an application takes more than a few seconds to pass control back to the run loop. This can happen for example when an application has entered an infinite loop, is waiting on data from the hard disk, or is simply doing an inordinately long computation which should have been moved off the main thread.

Often times this is the application programmer's fault: they wrote inefficient software or they failed to move long computations or blocking operations on the main thread.

As a user a number of things can be done to help remedy it, but it depends on the cause. Long computations -> get a faster CPU. Lots of paging from RAM to DISK -> get more RAM. Waiting on hard disk -> get a faster RPM higher capacity drive or an SSD.