[Snake]

Hello everyone,

I am currently comtemplating adding another 512mb of memory to my powerbook. I currently have 3 swap files in my menumeters history, 99,000 page-ins and 8,000 page-outs.

What is a good determining factor for adding memory to a system?

[mrmister]

For starters, how much memory do you have now?

[mgehman]

Originally posted by Snake:
Hello everyone,

I am currently comtemplating adding another 512mb of memory to my powerbook. I currently have 3 swap files in my menumeters history, 99,000 page-ins and 8,000 page-outs.

What is a good determining factor for adding memory to a system?

This what I have for you. With 2GB of ram. 42857 page ins 17 page out 1 swap file, your millage may vary.

[Snake]

Originally posted by mrmister:
For starters, how much memory do you have now?

512 mb, see the sig

[JKT]

Download Memory Monitor and observe your paging as you use the system (it is a freeware Dock app that displays the amount of wired/active/inactive/free RAM you have per user-defined period).

If you see a lot of paging activity while you are using the machine normally, then you need more RAM.

Personally, I would add that extra 512MB anyway. The more RAM you have, the better your system will run.

P.S. you can use Activity Monitor in 10.3.x to show similar things in its Dock icon. Launch AM and under the Monitor>Dock Icon menu choose Show Disk Activity. I prefer Memory Monitor as it displays both memory usage and paging at the same time.

[Snake]

According to Menumeters, my free (available) RAM never drops below 150mb. This is why I am wondering if I need to get more or not. I usually have Mail.app, IChat, X-Chat Aqua, Safari, and sometimes iTunes up during a normal day.

[mgehman]

Originally posted by Snake:
According to Menumeters, my free (available) RAM never drops below 150mb. This is why I am wondering if I need to get more or not. I usually have Mail.app, IChat, X-Chat Aqua, Safari, and sometimes iTunes up during a normal day.

I would imagine that there is some level of free RAM that under normal circumstances the system will not go below. Perhaps at that point the system will then start to page out and utilize higher levels of virtual memory, which is obviously slower. I did notice that when I got more RAM page outs were much less frequent. Don't know if any of this is true, but seems logical from what I'm seeing, of course that's what the Aztecs thought about human sacrifice.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Snake:
According to Menumeters, my free (available) RAM never drops below 150mb. This is why I am wondering if I need to get more or not. I usually have Mail.app, IChat, X-Chat Aqua, Safari, and sometimes iTunes up during a normal day.

Actually, with Unix systems, you don't want 'free' RAM. 'free' RAM = wasted RAM. You'd prefer having 'inactive' RAM actually. This has really changed since the OS 9 days, when we all always wanted to have as much free RAM left as possible.

What you want is no 'page ins/outs'. So you need more RAM when you see lots of page ins/outs. As long as you always have free RAM and you're not getting page outs, you are not low on RAM and buying more would probably have no influence.

[d.fine]

1GB RAM : 1.140.172 pageins & 398.396 pageouts
5 swap files

[iREZ]

I'd up your RAM atleast another 256MB so you could get 768MB in total. If you have one 512MB chip it wont cost much seeing how all PB try and sell their RAM when upgrading. If you have 2x256MB, then you need to get a 512MB chip and be like one of the owners in sentence two of this post.