Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

djbattaglia

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 12, 2008
31
0
London Ontario
ok so my iMac 21.5 has 4 gigs of ram, i was wondering if i add 2 more gigs of ram will i notice the difference in it? like load times on everything and speed on opening apps and what not not hang times?
 
Keep your eyes on Activity Monitor and see if your RAM usage is more that 75%. RAM will not speed up app launching, for that you need SSD
 
You can never have enough RAM. Spinning beachballs are partly due to virtual memory, HDs are too slow for decent processors so by increasing the physical memory you eliminate this problem.
 
You can never have enough RAM. Spinning beachballs are partly due to virtual memory, HDs are too slow for decent processors so by increasing the physical memory you eliminate this problem.

HDs are too slow but the amount of RAM doesn't always help. You have all your files in HD and when an app needs it, the HD spins and data is displayed, that info can't be saved to RAM. Most things are then saved to RAM so they are faster to reopen like web sites. For most things RAM doesn't help as it only speeds up certain things, not the read speed of HD.

+90% of beachballs happen when CPU has to wait for HD
 
Keep your eyes on Activity Monitor and see if your RAM usage is more that 75%. RAM will not speed up app launching, for that you need SSD

What is SSD? I kno i sound like a newb, but my iMac 21.5 is sorda slow i just re did the mac but still i feel like it should be faster so i figured if i get 6 gigs of ram i will be faster
 
What is SSD? I kno i sound like a newb, but my iMac 21.5 is sorda slow i just re did the mac but still i feel like it should be faster so i figured if i get 6 gigs of ram i will be faster

They are same as memory found in phones, memory sticks etc. Much faster than HDs and as I said, most time you get beachballing is when CPU has to wait for HD.

I would try with 6GB of RAM though as replacing HD voids warranty and is not the easiest thing to do plus SSDs costs pretty much
 
Its a shame we can’t squeeze a second drive in the iMac, I’d love a small SSD for the system and leave the 1TB for data storage.

…maybe one day…:eek:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.