Would upgrading to 8GB of RAM help prevent the swap file being used and reduce beachb

[whitedragon101]

This is my current memory stats which are for me quite a low load.

VM
1.91GB page ins
1.03GB page outs
3.79GB swap used.

RAM (total 4GB)
5mb Free
759mb wired
2.18GB active
1.08GB inactive


1)
Why is there a swap file of 3.79GB which means slow page outs from the hard drive when there is 1.08GB of inactive memory which could be used?

2)
Would upgrading to 8GB of RAM help prevent the swap file being used and reduce beachballing?

 

[PurrBall]

1) Who knows. I swear this problem is new in Snow Leopard.
2) Yes. I did, everything is significantly better here.

 

[stevemiller]

echoing PurrBall on this one, i'm sure anyone looking over my posting history will see that i've been whining about snow leopard memory issues pretty much since it came out!

and i'm not just talking about activity monitor stats, there was a concrete difference in system responsiveness between leopard and snow leopard (i use final cut/after effects/photoshop a lot so its probably more pronounced than itunes and web browsing)

anyway, as a result i went from 4 to 6gb, and then again from 6 to 8gb just recently. it hasn't been long enough to say for sure that it resolves beachball issues, and i partly suspect that after effects leaks away all your memory no matter how much you have, but at least it seems to be helping me work a little longer before things lock up.