ARM MAC = new Windows Vista machines in 2025

[Siliconguy]

mediaanalysisd is using 10.3 MB (mega, not giga) on my Mac. With this browser and Activity Monitor open I'm using 6 out of the 8 GB of RAM.

Opening a spreadsheet made no change to RAM usage, something in the cache must have been dropped. Zero swap used. In short, I'm not seeing what you are seeing, but I do nothing in the Cloud.

 

[Zest28]

mediaanalysisd is using 10.3 MB (mega, not giga) on my Mac. With this browser and Activity Monitor open I'm using 6 out of the 8 GB of RAM.

Opening a spreadsheet made no change to RAM usage, something in the cache must have been dropped. Zero swap used. In short, I'm not seeing what you are seeing, but I do nothing in the Cloud.

Now it is only 66MB here. But sometimes this process from Apple triggers to start scanning files and it will eat alot of CPU and RAM.

It doesn't stay this small forever.

And from what I read, these type of processes from Apple only trigger when the computer is idle, so probably only in my type of use cases is where you run into this problem (working in the cloud).

 

[TechRunner]

From what I read, these particular background process are triggered when the computer is idle. Since with cloud computing, everything happens in a datacenter somewhere, I guess that is why these processes are being triggered.

It doesn't happen all the time, it can go fine for weeks, but like today, I get "free space warnings" and when I check my memory usage, there it is again.

I'm no software engineer (far from it!), but is it possible the code in one of the programs you use is triggering an overly aggressive response from mediaanalysisd when your system is idle?

 

[throAU]

This is the first and only platform where I have seen how a machine with 32GB RAM doing very basic super easy workflows that you can do on a 15 years old computer without any problem, is flooding my memory and filling up all my remaining free disk space, forcing me restart the machine.

Stop looking at the memory consumption number and look at memory pressure.

Basically: you don't know what you're looking at (along with plenty of other people). You are witnessing disk cache.

This is why the memory pressure graph exists: because memory consumption is not an indication of memory shortage on a modern machine (i.e., once running an OS from the past 30 years or so that uses memory effectively).

Additionally, looking at process size in Activity monitor doesn't really show you how much RAM it is actually using, it shows you a virtual address space it is using which may or may not map to real memory on your machine.

Basically...

FREE MEMORY LOW BLOAT OS DERP

is outdated thinking from the days of DOS, AmigaOS, System 7 and the like.

This is why Apple has had a memory pressure graph for the past decade - to help people understand what is actually going on without needing a degree in computer systems engineering an memory management - and even if so qualified, manually looking into various metrics to calculate it. The pressure graph does it for you.

The above applies to Windows 2000 onward, Linux, MacOS the BSDs, etc.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

yes, macOS is designed to use as much RAM as it needs.
even when doing the simplest basic tasks, like just watching YouTube and listening to music, my 16 GB MBP shoots up to using 8, 10, 12 GB.
when I had a machine with 8 GB of RAM, it would constantly hover around using 5-6 GB of RAM.
you have a 32 GB machine, it’s likely to keep itself hovering around 24-28 GB.

but the Mac is smart. it knows how much RAM is available, and it knows how much it can use before problems Start to get introduced.

here is my question, have you actually been forced to restart your computer because of a reason? And not because activity monitor said so, but because your computer was actually functioning slow, giving you errors, beachballing, etc?
or, have you just been staring at activity monitor watching the numbers fluctuate, because that isn’t a particularly useful use of time for anyone.

PS: if you are interested, Apple does make a computer where RAM management is pretty much the exact opposite, and it will try to keep usage as low, low, low as possible. It’s called the iPad.

 

[Zest28]

yes, macOS is designed to use as much RAM as it needs.
even when doing the simplest basic tasks, like just watching YouTube and listening to music, my 16 GB MBP shoots up to using 8, 10, 12 GB.
when I had a machine with 8 GB of RAM, it would constantly hover around using 5-6 GB of RAM.
you have a 32 GB machine, it’s likely to keep itself hovering around 24-28 GB.

but the Mac is smart. it knows how much RAM is available, and it knows how much it can use before problems Start to get introduced.

here is my question, have you actually been forced to restart your computer because of a reason? And not because activity monitor said so, but because your computer was actually functioning slow, giving you errors, beachballing, etc?
or, have you just been staring at activity monitor watching the numbers fluctuate, because that isn’t a particularly useful use of time for anyone.

Yes, I'm aware that Apple uses RAM as much as possible. But this seems to be real memory issue as I first get a warning about not having enough disk space.

If I didn't get a disk space issue, I would have ignored and continue working. But now I just have to restart my computer.

In any case, let's close this topic for now as the only solution for me is to go to a different OS where they don't have these silly background processes that Apple has.

I was planning to buy a new PC with a RTX 5090 once there are some nice discounts in any case.

 

[russell_314]

You guys are really missing the point here. This is not user error from my side. Cloud computing has minimal impact on a local computer.

This is about Apple having silly ass background processes like "mediaanalysisd" that was eating at some point 8GB RAM.

You sound like a user that likes to tinker and have more control over his computer. You would be happier with Linux. You can also use Windows because there are stripped down versions but it’s not as flexible.

Apple is a computer just to get stuff done and you don’t care about what amount of RAM is being used at the moment as long as it’s doing the job. If there is unused RAM macOS will allocate it to something. I had a 2018 Mac mini with 32 GB of RAM and it would use almost all of it sometimes while I was doing hardly anything. This is why it’s never good to consider the amount of RAM use but rather memory pressure.

 

[throAU]

Yes, I'm aware that Apple uses RAM as much as possible. But this seems to be real memory issue as I first get a warning about not having enough disk space.

Disk space is not RAM, and running your machine out of disk space sounds like user error.

I was planning to buy a new PC with a RTX 5090 once there are some nice discounts in any case.

Just wait until you see things like this with very little open on a machine that's been running for 15 minutes:

WHY IS MY MACHINE USING 19GB TO RUN BRAVE WITH 3 TABS!


Leave linux running for a day and actually do anything with it and it will consume 90% of your RAM too, for... drum roll.... DISK CACHE

 

[Zest28]

Disk space is not RAM, and running your machine out of disk space sounds like user error.

Memory swapping = more disk usage.

MacRumors loves to make up stuff in order to blame me, when it's pretty much common knowledge that the disk is used when running out of memory.

 

[throAU]

Memory swapping = more disk usage.

MacRumors loves to make up stuff in order to blame me, when it's pretty much common knowledge that the disk is used when running out of memory.

Lets see your swap usage.

And no... waiting to run out of memory to swap to disk is 1990s thinking. If the OS waits until it is low or out of memory to swap, its too late.

IDLE things are paged to disk so they can be dropped from memory instantly if required to fulfil a large malloc. I.e. things can be IN MEMORY and IN SWAP at the same time (i.e., cached).

If you are running out of disk - you are running out of disk and need to stop over-filling your machine with crap or buy an appropriate amount of storage.

Whether the machine is LINUX, MacOS or Windows.

Changing your OS will not solve this, changing your usage habits will. Buying more hardware will until your poor habits fill that too.


edit:
i mean, just look at the task manager pic i posted (from the machine i am using here, minutes ago) for proof that paging (i.e., SWAP) happens BEFORE you run out of RAM. 44GB of free ram (which is only free because i haven't loaded much from SSD yet) and windows has already paged out 966 MB. Windows 11 24H2.

 

[Zest28]

Lets see your swap usage.

I already restarted my computer obviously so I could continue working, so now it's only 1GB in swap total.

If you believe MAC OS is so lean and efficient, can you run MAC OS on a 1GB RAM machine?

Linux can do this without a problem at all.

 

[progx]

Why would I throw away a $4000 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro? That's alot of money.

In any case, my next computer will be a PC with the RTX 5090 once those Black Friday discounts kicks in.

Cool story bro

 

[throAU]

I already restarted my computer obviously so I could continue working, so now it's only 1GB in swap total.

If you believe MAC OS is so lean and efficient, can you run MAC OS on a 1GB RAM machine?

Linux can do this without a problem at all.

Sure, and as soon as you start adding the features to Linux that you take for granted on macOS the memory usage blows out too. Linux running in 1 GB these days is about as useful as a 15 year old PC running Windows XP. Probably less useful actually.

I've run linux since 1995 and had it running in 4 MB of RAM. But X11 ran like crap, needed at least 8 MB to run a web browser that wasn't Lynx. 16 MB to be actually useful.


But in any case, i'm not "defending macOS".

I'm saying that all the major platforms

• will show you huge memory usage numbers and no free RAM once they fill memory with disk cache
• swap to disk well before being in memory trouble
• do bad things if you run them out of disk space

And all of this is to be expected!

NO EXCEPTIONS

You're having problems with macOS because you've run out of disk. Not macOS's fault. Do the same to a Windows machine and you will have similar problems. Run Linux out of disk and its actually much worse.

 

[dennis264]

SHOW US ACTIVITY MONITOR, or it didn't happen.

I came for the popcorn. But at this moment the OP is very wrong unless the post PROOF.

Edit: Also what do you mean "scanning media"... turn spotlight and iCloud Photos off! Oh wait you need those for your workflow, but are mad that they are running?

Maybe you have a virus, try rebuilding the desktop database then fix permission..... /s

 

[Zest28]

Sure, and as soon as you start adding the features to Linux that you take for granted on macOS the memory usage blows out too.

Those spying features of Apple and other background processes are not needed at all. 1 GB RAM is all you need in Linux for a fully functioning Python environment if you don't do anything crazy with big data. And it even has more features than MAC OS as there is no CUDA for example on MAC OS.

 

[Zest28]

SHOW US ACTIVITY MONITOR, or it didn't happen.

I came for the popcorn. But at this moment the OP is very wrong unless the post PROOF.

You are absolutely right. Apple doesn't have these silly background processes that is scanning for all these media files. I made it all up.

Your wonderful Apple devices are 100% perfect and I can't believe the industry is using Linux for high performance computing instead of MAC OS, when Mac OS is so much better than anything else out there.

 

[throAU]

Those spying features of Apple and other background processes are not needed at all. 1 GB RAM is all you need in Linux for a fully functioning Python environment if you don't do anything crazy with big data. And it even has more features than MAC OS as there is no CUDA for example on MAC OS.

Go to linux, i'm sure you'll love it and find nothing to whine about.

Come back here and post TOP showing you running a browser on a modern PC with 5090 that has been up for more than an hour using 1 GB of RAM.

Not that i care, because i literally rebooted into Windows from Linux to show the Windows 11 situation. I know how linux behaves on this exact same hardware.

 

[Zest28]

Go to linux, i'm sure you'll love it and find nothing to whine about.

Yes, I do use Linux everyday at work in the cloud.

 

[plufz]

I'm quite happy with my mac setup, but I agree that macos seems to use more and more resources. The processes consuming most CPU on my machine is often from macos, even though I use some quite performance hungry third party apps. CGPDFService regularly uses quite a lot of CPU, networked time machine backups sometimes use all free CPU resources on all cores for a couple of minutes, etc etc.

 

[throAU]

Yes, I do use Linux everyday at work in the cloud.

run it on your desktop, stop comparing cloud servers to desktop platforms

 

[dennis264]

You are absolutely right. Apple doesn't have these silly background processes that is scanning for all these media files. I made it all up.

You come in here being all flazedah, and then don't show us PROOF.

Show us this process, let us help you.

Venting fine that's literally 90% of this forum, now you are just aggressively complaining. It's ok. Popcorn.

 

[Plutonius]

Yes, I'm aware that Apple uses RAM as much as possible. But this seems to be real memory issue as I first get a warning about not having enough disk space.

Not having enough disk space sounds like a storage issue.

 

[progx]

run it on your desktop, stop comparing cloud servers to desktop platforms

Recommend Ubuntu, but they’ll complain about it too. Guess they’ll rave about one of the other flavors.

 

[neuropsychguy]

If you're doing just about everything in the cloud, why not buy a used SFF HP/Dell/Lenovo for $150 and use that instead? Or, you can get a little N100/150 mini pc for <$200 and use that. You can put Lubuntu, Debian/Ubuntu + XFCE, Linux Mint, or Arch + whatever on it. Pop in the largest NVMe you need and 32 to 64 GB of RAM (if it's a system with upgradable RAM) and you'll be fine.

I don't understand how you can have problems doing things "in the cloud" on a 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro. I do tons of local and "cloud" stuff on a base M4 Mini or my M1 MBP without any problems. Occasionally I can get my memory pressure into yellow or red on the Mini when I'm doing more with the computer than it's really designed to handle (processes requiring >16 GB of RAM), but that's understandable because I'm borrowing "RAM" in those cases.

You could also just install some flavor of Linux on your current machine through Asahi Linux. Just about everything is supported with your hardware.

Also, if you do everything in the cloud, why consider getting an RTX 5090? That seems excessively wasteful.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Why would I throw away a $4000 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro? That's alot of money.

In any case, my next computer will be a PC with the RTX 5090 once those Black Friday discounts kicks in.

Throw it away? What kind of take is that? Do you send your car to the junk yard when you're done with it?

Sell it, and buy what you want; it's not a burger king wrapper.

..and grow up.