Would I benefit from a RAM upgrade?

[TheOriginalKi]

Mostly I browse the web, listen to music and use IMs, however I do play the odd game. I've attached a screen capture of my general usage (when not playing games). I'm new to Mac so don't fully understand it yet.


Early 2011 MBP 2.3 i5, 4GB RAM and 320 HDD. Also considering putting a 256 Crucial M4 SSD in the MBP.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

How to attach an image to your MR post.​

Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

If your page outs accumulate to more than 1 GB in a day during your typical computer usage, you can benefit from more RAM.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

To learn more about Mac OS X: Helpful Information for Any Mac User by GGJstudios​

 

[Mal]

If that truly represents average usage (the computer had not just been restarted and you've been using it for a little while with your normal activity), then no, you would not likely benefit from additional RAM. You have very few page-outs, so you are not using more RAM than you have available.

jW

 

[GGJstudios]

Mostly I browse the web, listen to music and use IMs, however I do play the odd game. I've attached a screen capture of my general usage (when not playing games). I'm new to Mac so don't fully understand it yet.

To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

 

[TheOriginalKi]

Thanks guys, that's cleared things up a little. I'll probably go ahead with the SSD but leave out the RAM.