[TheaterCub]

Im really dumb when it comes down to memory.

If I have 45.13 GB available (I got my 17 in AlBook back in May) and I had 512 MB to start with, is that a lot of memory left? I ask because Im about to import some footage into iMovie and I knolw that uses a lot of memory.

[::maroma::]

Are you confusing hard drive space with memory? The 45.13GB of space left is how much hard drive space you have. 512MB of RAM is decent these days. If you plan on doing a good deal of video editing, I would invest in another 512MB of RAM. In fact, I would say just invest in an extra 512MB of RAM even if you aren't going to be doing a lot of video editing. But 512MB for iMovie will probably get the job done.

[ryaxnb]

You are, I think, confusing HD (hard drive) space and RAM (memory.)

RAM, or Random Access Memory, or just Memory, is temporary*. It is, however, very fast. When you load a program or document, much of it will probably be in RAM, so it can run faster. Generally, you have less memory then you do hard drive space. For instance, my iBook came with 256MB (megabytes) of memory. It also came with 40GB (gigabytes) of hard drive space. 1 GB = 1,024 MB.

Hard drives are slower. One big reason for this is that they [hard drives] are mechanical, unlike memory. However, stuff on a hard drive is stored permanently**, unlike stuff in memory. And hard drives generally store far more then memory. For these reasons, most of your programs and documents as well as the operating system is stored on the hard drive, and only placed into memory when needed.

There's one more concept to understand: virtual memory. Mac OS X (pronounce it Mac-Oh-Sss-Ten) makes extensive use of virtual memory. When the computer takes a special chunk of hard drive space and acts like that chunk of hard drive space is memory, that's called virtual memory. Virtual memory is far slower then real memory, but since hard drives are generally so large, you can pretend to have far more memory then you really do.

* Temporary; goes away when the computer is shut down or restarted, and can also be removed manually.
** Permanent; does not go away when the computer is shut down or restarted, but can be removed manually.

[adamk]

Originally posted by TheaterCub:
Im really dumb when it comes down to memory.

If I have 45.13 GB available (I got my 17 in AlBook back in May) and I had 512 MB to start with, is that a lot of memory left? I ask because Im about to import some footage into iMovie and I knolw that uses a lot of memory.

sounds like you are mixing two different things; hard drive space and RAM size. the 45.13 Gb is available space on you hard drive. 512 Mb is the amount of memory your computer has with which to operate.

it looks like you have plenty of space available on your harddrive for some video editing. you may find that you'll need to get a larger harddrive if you do a lot.

as far as your RAM is concerned, you may want to get more, though 512 is a good amount to start with. if you open Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app, you can check how much memory is available to the system under System Memory. do this some time under normal working conditions. if you still have free memory available, you'll proably not need more.

adam