When your computer is running a bit slowly, how can you tell if getting more memory will help?
If you run out of free memory then your computer will be forced to use some of your hard disk as memory, which is VERY SLOW because hard drives are much slower to access than your computer’s RAM. It’s not just a matter of saying ‘8 GB’ is enough because the amount of RAM you need will vary according to your Mac model and the programs you use. Here’s how to check if you have enough RAM.
With El Capitan Apple have introduced a very simple graph based on colours to let you know if you have enough RAM or not. Do this during the middle of using your computer for what you normally use it for. Don’t do this as soon as you start your computer as this won’t give a good indication of your normal usage. Better still, check it at various times over a few days.
If there is any red in the memory pressure you need more RAM. Red means your performance is taking a hit because your computer needs to use the disk drive for memory.
If the memory pressure is green you have enough memory (like the screenshot above).
If the memory pressure is yellow it may be worth monitoring over a few days to see if it goes into the red.
On older versions of Mac OS the display looks more like this:
There are two important items to take note of ‘Free:’ and ‘Page outs:’
Free tells you how much free memory you currently have available to use – the higher the better. If you have no free memory you should get more RAM.
A Page out means your computer has run out of memory and had to use some of the Hard Disk instead of RAM. (This is the equivalent of your brain being too full so you have to write your thoughts down on paper to free up some head space) This DRAMATICALLY slows down your computer.
Tip: Page outs occur when your Mac has to write information from RAM to the hard drive (because RAM is full). Adding more RAM may reduce page outs.
Some Examples:
Here’s a mac with plenty of RAM (12G) – lots of Free RAM (green) and zero Page outs.
Here’s a mac with just enough RAM (8G) – a relatively little Page out Count (339MB) and some free memory (green).
Here’s a Mac that needs more RAM (it only has 640M!) – note the High Page Out Count (1010524) even though it currently has some ‘free’ RAM.
This Mac definitely needs some more RAM! Practically no free memory AND High Page-out Count. (1GB!) Performance will be suffering badly. I would add at least another 4G Ram, maybe 8G more to bring it up to 12G.
In OSX Leopard rather than giving a ‘count’ of page in and page outs, it gives a size in GB of the amount of RAM that has been paged in or out. The numbers are smaller but the same principles apply.
In OSX Lion there is a new entry called ‘Swap Used’. (See the last picture above). This is a count of how much Disk Space your computer is using as RAM and it’s a good rough estimate of the minimum amount of extra RAM you need. Eg If your Swap used is 4G then get AT LEAST 4G more RAM.
You can’t buy any RAM. It needs to be Apple compatible. It’s worth getting good quality RAM to avoid problems. Currently my 2 favourite places to buy RAM are Crucial.com or OWC Computing. My Mac mini has 16GB of Crucial RAM in it at the moment. I’m in Australia and it usually arrives in about a week. OWC might be the better option if you live in the USA.
They have a memory lookup tool for all computers where you choose your model and it shows you exactly what memory you need. The memory chooser tool looks like this:
First choose ‘Apple’ where it says ‘Choose Manufacturer’
Secondly select your mac when it says ‘select product line’ (e.g. iMac or Macbook etc)
Finally select the exact model (e.g. Early 2011 i7 27″ iMac”)
It will then show you the options you can buy.
Another reliable source of good Mac RAM is Other World Computing, also called macsales.com.
RAM in your computer is like the paper sitting on your desk. The information is easy and fast to access. Your Hard Disk is more like a filing cabinet, it takes a bit longer to retrieve information.
When your desk gets too cluttered you need to spend some time moving things in and out of the filing cabinet, which slows things down.
You don’t need to be able to store everything in your computers memory, it’s good to have a hard disk, but if you don’t have enough memory then your computer will need to access your hard disk too much and this can slow things down.
To quote from Apple:
Moving data from physical memory to disk is called paging out (or swapping out); moving data from disk to physical memory is called paging in (or swapping in)… Extended periods of paging activity reduce performance significantly; such activity is sometimes called disk thrashing.
I am dumb as dirt and I was able to read and understand this article. Your screen captures were great! I was able to match w/my Activity Monitor and I still might bring my Mac to the Genius Bar but at least I am more informed that I need RAM. Thanks so much!!!
Great article, but I have a MacBook Pro5.5 (late 2009), running Mavericks, and the Activity Monitor doesn’t have tabs at the bottom. I’m not seeing anything about Free and Page Outs, so I wonder if something changed with Mavericks? How can I ascertain that same information? It does show Physical Memory (4GB) and Memory Used (about all of it), but I’d like to ensure upgrading my memory is going to have a positive impact on my system performance, which has become progressively worse.
I have the same issue as Geno and JoJoHants with the difference layout – does anyone have any information about how we can get the one with the charts and the mention of Free and Page Outs?
Did you ever get an update on this? I have macbook late 2009 as well and not seeing the page in or out info.
Tks, : ) love this site so easy to get an answer & understand. Dont leave here thinking did that help me or not. Graphs really break it down 2 simple. Marking this site FOR SURE (I’ll B BACK)
Thanks Brenda!
Hi my memory slot says ” PHYSICAL MEMORY 4.00 GB
MEMORY USED 3.55 GB
VIRTUAL MEMORY 4.00 GB
SWAP USED O BYTES
Now I’m confused, though my computer does say’ system overload’ in new Garageband 10.3.
Any help appreciated very much, thanks a lot :)
thanks
very good
Hi, the approach is really appreciable, but can we have some demo on EI Captain too, as its not using the same words in activity monitor.
Thank You.
thanks
Thank you for this helpful post. I am showing green in the graph for physical memory so it seems from your post that I do not need more ram. And I have fib optics yet my Mac is running so slowly. What else should I check for? Thanks.
Check you Hard disk – how full is it?
Awesome post.
I have a mid 2011 iMac. It had 4GB of RAM and is running at 3.5GB used. This looks like I could really do with some RAM. I am unsure whether to go for another 8, 16 or max it to 32GB of RAM. I am thinking another 8 will take it to 12GB and that should be enough. Also, does it matter if I get 2x4GB or 1x8GB?
This is an old post so I am not expecting a reply and will do further research, but wanted to say thanks for the very simple to follow post.
I run 8 gig in my macbook pro and it’s fine. I’d say 12GB will be heaps if you only run 4GB now.
I think you can pick up 2x4GB cheaper than 1x8GB.
Matched pairs is actually better for performance too, e.g. 2x4GB, is better than 1x8GB.
Thanks Wayne.
I decided that for the sake of £30 extra I would go for the 16GB. I went for 2x8GB of crucial. It might be crazy but I thought it would slightly future proof it if I start doing some photo work on my iMac. I might be wrong but for a layout of £76 for 16GB I am happy.
I had the same question as Matthew, for the same model iMac, and your answer is very helpful Wayne. The one thing I’m unsure of though is: does it matter if all 4 slots match up or not? I understand that paired matches are best, but does it have to be 4x4GB or can it be 2x2GB (what I have now) + 2x8GB? Does that matter? I can’t seem to find an answer to this question anywhere online! Thanks in advance if you get a chance to answer this :)
Yes 2G,2G,8G,8G is fine – that is paired.
So is 2G,2G,4G,4G,
What is not good is 2G, 2G, 2G, 8G.
Physical Memory: 8.00 GB
Memory Used: 5.31 GB
Cache: 2.53 GB
Swap Used: 0 bytes
App Memory: 4.43 GB
Wired Memory: 913.MB
Compresed: 0 bytes
Do I have enough memory?
My Mac is running extremely slow.
Storage: 1TB SATA Disk [ 521.87 GB free of 998.97 GB
looks like enough.
Thank you for this helpful post. I run 8 gig in my macbook pro and it’s fine
My iPad is becoming useless because it won’t update anymore. If I buy a MacBook I’m worried about the same problem. I’m not a gamer or a video editor. I want a MacBook for as cheap as possible but I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by buying something that will be outdated in a year or three. I want to be able to do research and prepare speeches,write papers and watch the occasional video. Can someone tell me what I need?
I have a 2012 macbook and it is running fine. The new iOS updates seem to cripple old iPhones by slowing them down, but in my experience the new OSX updates for computers don’t tend to hurt older machines. In fact sometimes there are improvements. The only exceptions are (1) make sure that you have enough RAM, and (2) some older software does not work after a new software update. e.g. I had to recently update Filemaker Pro, Adobe Photoshop and Comic Life simple because the new OS X was not compatible with older versions.
Thanks for the article. Guess I need more ram now
Hi
Thanks for the article.
the article is very good
looks like enough for me
Hi, the approach is really appreciable, but can we have some demo on EI Captain too, as its not using the same words in activity monitor.
Crucial is absolutely WORTHLESS!
I don’t know a lot about Macs. But I think mine needs more memory. I’ll try to get some quality RAM that is Apple compatible.
great