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DavidHossack · Nov 5, 2007, 10:13 PM

Since I have upgraded to Leopard I have noticed that my Hard Drive has been rather full. I always had plenty space before. On investigation I have noticed that my Virtual memory usage has gone way up.

My memory statistics from Activity Monitor are:

Free: 663.88MB
Wired: 220.59MB
Active: 606.12MB
Inactive: 558.13 MB
Used: 1.35GB

VM Size: 48.58GB
Page Ins: 881.44MB
Page Outs: 564KB
Swap Used: 25.08MB

Total RAM 2.0GB

Leopard is running well but I can hardly believe that almost half my Hard Drive is running the VM for my machine. At this moment I am not running any of CS3 but just the essentials and Pages. I am really glad I got the 120GB Hard drive upgrade two years ago when I got this machine. Will some of these VM sizes be toned down when my data storage increases or will I just run out?

I really wonder what the people with 80GB HDs are doing?

My Specs are PBG4 1.67GHz Hi-Res 2GB RAM/120GB HD

Look forward to your input/comments

Art Vandelay · Nov 5, 2007, 10:19 PM

Swap is the number that you need to be looking at. You only have 25.08MB of Swap on your hard drive. Virtual Memory is virtual. It is not using 48+GB of your hard drive.

You need to look elsewhere for your hard drive usage. Keep in mind that Leopard is a lot bigger OS than Tiger, especially if you kept the default install options.

0157988944 · Nov 5, 2007, 11:11 PM

Why does Virtual Mem Size fluctuate, then, if it's "Virtual?"

Art Vandelay · Nov 5, 2007, 11:24 PM

Because the number of processes running fluctuates. Each process is allocated an amount of Virtual Memory.

0157988944 · Nov 5, 2007, 11:24 PM

Oh... That makes sense now

Art Vandelay · Nov 5, 2007, 11:28 PM

And just to prove to any doubters that VM isn't actually allocated onto the disk...

I have 40.55GB of Virtual Memory allocated. My hard drive only has 28.26GB on it.

~bash $ · Nov 5, 2007, 11:41 PM

HOWEVER, I have noticed that my amount of page outs have increased noticeably since upgrading to Leopard. Anyone else?

Art Vandelay · Nov 6, 2007, 12:52 AM

I haven't but it's not surprising considering that Leopard is a more demanding OS.

DavidHossack · Nov 6, 2007, 04:21 AM

oh well-back to the hunt for the missing 10GB.

Thanks for the input

Simon · Nov 6, 2007, 04:40 AM

Try out WhatSize (it's free). It should make it very easy for you to find what's eating up your disk.

JustinHoMi · Nov 6, 2007, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by ~bash $

HOWEVER, I have noticed that my amount of page outs have increased noticeably since upgrading to Leopard. Anyone else?

SIGNIFICANTY more page outs. With Tiger 512MB was just fine for what I do (web programming). However with Leopard my Mac is barely usable. It seems like the longer I go without rebooting, the worse it gets. In fact, if the computer has been running for a day, Mac OS X will swap with only one or two applications open.

I think it's a bug, to be honest with you.

Dork. · Nov 6, 2007, 04:17 PM

I don't have any hard evidence for this (I don't have my Mac at work), but I just got a new MacBook, and it's nice and fast, except when switching between apps. I suspect that Leopard is eating lots and lots of RAM, and 1GB just ain't gonna cut it. I have two 2GB sticks on order, so we'll see how much faster it is then.

Person Man · Nov 6, 2007, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by JustinHoMi

SIGNIFICANTY more page outs. With Tiger 512MB was just fine for what I do (web programming). However with Leopard my Mac is barely usable. It seems like the longer I go without rebooting, the worse it gets. In fact, if the computer has been running for a day, Mac OS X will swap with only one or two applications open.

I think it's a bug, to be honest with you.

Nope, not a bug. Leopard requires more resources. 512 MB is the absolute minimum required, according to Apple's listed specs. Tiger's minimum was 256 MB, and even at 256 MB Tiger ran like ass. Panther's minimum was 128 MB.

Catfish_Man · Nov 6, 2007, 11:05 PM

I get many less pageouts on Leopard than I did in Tiger. Previously whenever I hit 1400-1500MB active, I'd get paging. Now it's more like 1700-1800 before much paging activity starts, which I rarely hit.

Chuckit · Nov 6, 2007, 11:50 PM

I haven't noticed more pageouts in general.

wr11 · Nov 7, 2007, 03:57 AM

I'm finding that leopard tends to use much less real memory while using more virtual memory. I have only had a few pageouts and from what I have seen my overall memory usage seems to have gone down.

Simon · Nov 7, 2007, 04:30 AM

I have not noticed more pageouts. But I have certainly noticed more active memory being used. It's up by roughly 200 MB here.

Dork. · Nov 7, 2007, 08:37 AM

My gut feeling is that Leopard is more efficient with virtual memory, but uses more memory. I'm expecting that the people who are not seeing more pageouts have more than 1 GB installed, because I'm seeing a ton. (Mostly when launching Civ 4.

) However, I am anticipating that the days of 10 to 20 GB Swap Files are in the past. (I regularly saw swap files that big on Tiger.)

The low-end Macs will be hardest hit, since they are also using System Memory for video. And since the new MacBooks (like mine) have the new integrated graphics chip which is using more System Memory than the GMA950, they'll be even worse. I think I'll try my MacBook with just one 2GB stick in it for a while, to see if that's enough ot stop the paging I'm seeing.

Don Pickett · Nov 7, 2007, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by Dork.

My gut feeling is that Leopard is more efficient with virtual memory, but uses more memory. I'm expecting that the people who are not seeing more pageouts have more than 1 GB installed, because I'm seeing a ton. (Mostly when launching Civ 4.

) However, I am anticipating that the days of 10 to 20 GB Swap Files are in the past. (I regularly saw swap files that big on Tiger.)

I'm seeing my machine use about 100 more MB for wired memory than under 10.4.x.