I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM

[TrueBlou]

A Thunderbolt or USB 3 SSD won't make a bit of difference on a Late 2009 iMac. The only thing slow about the HDD is booting up and I never turn the computer off.

Of course I’m forgetting the older iMac only had usb 2.0, so yeah, on the slow side.

I upgraded to 12 first, by adding 8 GB and it was still swapping so I went up to 16. Right now program + cache are about 14 GB. It is nice to cache all of the files that you use as you don't have to go to the disk at all to fetch data. I was hitting 16 GB of RAM use which is why I clustered this system with two other systems. The three systems together have 72 GB of RAM, 10 Cores, 2 SSDs and 1 HDD. The MacBook Pro also gets near 16 GB of RAM for programs and cache.

There is no downside to more RAM. Especially if you want longevity.

I never said there was a downside to more RAM, I said it’s less noticeable when you get to higher amounts, until you’re working on very large projects.

As someone whose never had less than 32GB since it became possible on the iMac. Well, technically I have, because I buy them low and upgrade the RAM myself. I have yet to see any difference in day to day use of an iMac above 16GB.

On my 32 and 64GB systems, general day to day use has been no different whatsoever than with 16GB. You need to be doing something that will use the memory in order to see a difference above a certain amount. Until I’m working on large projects, a lot of that memory sits there unused.

Having said that, the 8GB M1 MacBook Air blows the ass of my iMac in every way imaginable.

 

[pshufd]

Of course I’m forgetting the older iMac only had usb 2.0, so yeah, on the slow side.






I never said there was a downside to more RAM, I said it’s less noticeable when you get to higher amounts, until you’re working on very large projects.

As someone whose never had less than 32GB since it became possible on the iMac. Well, technically I have, because I buy them low and upgrade the RAM myself. I have yet to see any difference in day to day use of an iMac above 16GB.

On my 32 and 64GB systems, general day to day use has been no different whatsoever than with 16GB. You need to be doing something that will use the memory in order to see a difference above a certain amount. Until I’m working on large projects, a lot of that memory sits there unused.

Having said that, the 8GB M1 MacBook Air blows the ass of my iMac in every way imaginable.

My new Windows desktop routinely uses 29-31 GB of RAM for my daily workload. Which is why it has 64 GB of RAM. RAM is dirt cheap unless you buy it from Apple. The iMac is one of the best values around because RAM is user-installable. I also looked at 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Mac Pros that could hold the dual-Xeons. They typically came with 12 DIMM slots so you could really load them up with cheap ECE RAM. Unfortunately the used prices for even those systems is pretty high. Those are demonstrably faster in some tasks because of the six-channel RAM.

 

[armoured]

A Thunderbolt or USB 3 SSD won't make a bit of difference on a Late 2009 iMac. The only thing slow about the HDD is booting up and I never turn the computer off.

Well, it would make a difference, but not so much in your specific use pattern - leave it on 24 hours and using a specific set of programs, yes, won't make much difference. Anyway for an 11-year old computer, sounds like you're getting good service and may not make much sense to do much more.

 

[armoured]

You're spot on, I can tell you that from experience. My iMac is a late 2015 Retina 5K, in which I upgraded to 32GB of RAM, because before the M1 came along and made me question everything I know about how a system should run, that was the minimum RAM I need for my system to cope with my workload.

However, when I swapped from an old fashioned platter drive to an SSD, I saw immediate improvements to the overall speed of the system in a way I never had from adding more RAM. RAM is great for its intended purpose - temporarily storing data, but damn an SSD really makes a difference, get the fastest one you can and gaze in wonder at the improvement

I've made myself popular with a smallish number of family and friends that are using old macbook pros. They just want to squeak a bit more usage out of their old machines. I'll buy them a $50-100 ssd and swap it for the hard drive, to them it's like a new machine. (Yes, I'll put in memory too if very low). Easy way to squeeze out a year or two more out of an old machine.

Note though, I'm not saying SSD better or more important than RAM - just as you said that at some point when you have 'enough' ram that swapping doesn't dominate, an SSD upgrade is bigger bang for the buck. (Of course SSD also makes ram swapping a whole lot less painful, almost bearable)

It's a balance question and where is the bottleneck.

 

[pshufd]

Well, it would make a difference, but not so much in your specific use pattern - leave it on 24 hours and using a specific set of programs, yes, won't make much difference. Anyway for an 11-year old computer, sounds like you're getting good service and may not make much sense to do much more.

There is always some risk in opening up a machine. The Late 2009 iMac has a user-accessible slot for upgrading the RAM. Replacing the HDD requires removing the screen, disconnecting cables without damaging them, etc. I have worked on lots of Macs, Windows and other systems but this stuff still requires a lot of care. No fun having to replace an ancient cable because you accidentally damaged it opening up the system.

 

[alien3dx]

There is always some risk in opening up a machine. The Late 2009 iMac has a user-accessible slot for upgrading the RAM. Replacing the HDD requires removing the screen, disconnecting cables without damaging them, etc. I have worked on lots of Macs, Windows and other systems but this stuff still requires a lot of care. No fun having to replace an ancient cable because you accidentally damaged it opening up the system.

i kinda scare to open Mac compare pc x86. the only i brave to replace ram and disk macbook pro 2011 because seem like normal laptop .. my imac -> shop.. me no expert.

 

[armoured]

There is always some risk in opening up a machine. The Late 2009 iMac has a user-accessible slot for upgrading the RAM. Replacing the HDD requires removing the screen, disconnecting cables without damaging them, etc. I have worked on lots of Macs, Windows and other systems but this stuff still requires a lot of care. No fun having to replace an ancient cable because you accidentally damaged it opening up the system.

Yeah, I've never done any work on the imacs. The older macbook pros were reasonably straightforward, dealing with screens scares me, not my thing.

Anyway seems you're getting good service out of your old imac. If you're not using the drive much except at boot - well, you might get bigger improvement from faster internet )).

 

[pshufd]

i kinda scare to open Mac compare pc x86. the only i brave to replace ram and disk macbook pro 2011 because seem like normal laptop .. my imac -> shop.. me no expert.

I have a Mac-specific toolkit and several other toolkits to work on Macs and Windows systems. I think that i got the Mac toolkit from OWC but am not completely sure. The toolkits are required - you still need to be careful. On the iMac, you place it flat on the table, use suction cups to pop out the glass, unscrew and then tilt-up the screen about 25 degrees, peer in with a flashlight and gently remove the cables.

 

[pldelisle]

Since we are in personal opinions...

My development workstation has 32 GB of RAM, 2 RTX 2080 GPU, i7 2700K. The motherboard is maced out at 32 GB. I would have upgraded to 64 GB anytime. My algorithm maxes the amount of RAM ava

My production servers are the Cedar node from Compute Canada. 192 GB RAM, access to 4 Tesla V100 32 GB, access to 64 threads per node.

My daily driver is a MacBook Pro 15 late-2013. i7 2.4GHz, 512 GB, 16 GB. Still running fine, but now usually running in average around 12-13 GB of RAM usage.

In last summer, I thought about the iMac 2020. I was ready to buy one with a 64 GB RAM upgrade. Finally, changed plans, kept my MacBook Pro a bit more and then found a job which gave me a completely locked down laptop for security purpose. An iMac wouldn’t have fitted my desk anymore, so hopefully I didn’t buy it.

The only thing that makes me sad is that I will soon buy a computer with the exact same specs as my late 2013. 4 high performance core, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, 7+ years later. But since my workload would not run even on a Mac Pro, I’m condemned to use a dedicated server in a way. I’ll probably keep my server at home a couple of years more even with my future Mac mini.

 

[mr_jomo]

Just ran a simulated workflow (is vacation after all) on my mac Mini M1: combining 4-6 tabs in Edge (outlook, sharepoint, teams, todo, onedrive, dynamics), 2-3 documents (sizable granted) open in each of the programs in Microsoft office , Skype for business running ... total ram used 10.5GB.

Pretty happy with getting a 16GB that's for sure.

 

[JeepGuy]

There is always some risk in opening up a machine. The Late 2009 iMac has a user-accessible slot for upgrading the RAM. Replacing the HDD requires removing the screen, disconnecting cables without damaging them, etc. I have worked on lots of Macs, Windows and other systems but this stuff still requires a lot of care. No fun having to replace an ancient cable because you accidentally damaged it opening up the system.

It's not that bad, I've done about 8 or 9 of them for friends, My 2008 iMac with only 6gb of ram, has new life after putting in a SSD, it was almost unusable before, Mind you it's mainly a bedroom TV.

 

[mo5214]

Is there an easy way apart from smartmontools or DriveDX how to check the TB written to my SSD? Thanks.

Not sure about disksensei now called Sensei (not free) that has this feature among other things. (It used to be standalone app that got merged)

Sensei: The Ultimate Mac Cleaner for macOS. Speed up your Mac Performance.

Sensei is a Mac cleaner, monitoring and optimizer app. Learn how to clean Mac, optimize performance, check battery health and clean up hard drive to get more free space on your Macbook or iMac. Download the best Mac cleanup app now!

sensei.app

but anything that can read SMART value should be good.

This one is probably more user-oriented

 

[MDePew24]

I am ready to push the button on my M1 Pro but am leaning towards 16GB as I have always chosen to upgrade RAM in the past and have never regretted the decision. My use case where I think I might need is for video and photo editing in Adobe.

I am now reading so many reviews that the M1 is a new paradigm and 8GB seems to be more than enough for anyone but the most demanding users.

Making it harder is the fact that all of the models available through third party re-sellers like Amazon offer discounts of up to 5%, but they are limited to 8GB models.

I am biased to go for the 16GB anyway, but still foregoing the discount makes the net price of the upgrade very expensive.

I went 16 but mostly just to future proof it as much as possible and also to help resale value whenever I decide to sell it later.

 

[thinkingBanana]

So at least you have similar results between the two. If you have questions about the results, I would be willing to bet that BinaryFruit would answer any questions you might have about the accuracy of results DriveDX is showing.

I have not looked into the specific version of Apple SSD you have, but DriveDX actually compiles a database of individual drives and their statistics in order to create their health and life ratings.

With only 4 days of usage, I am not surprised that everything has a 100% rating. I have an older Samsung 850 EVO that is at least 3 years old that still shows 100% for all ratings as well.

Unless you learn otherwise, it appears your numbers are correct in the amount of SSD writes that are taking place due to memory swap.

Based on that, I am going to say that my assumptions in my previous post are close to correct and that systems which heavily rely on swap for memory put a great deal of wear on an SSD. I was assuming it was possible to see 100 GB of writes per day for normal usage, and you were seeing 30GB / day with no usage to 230GB / day with intense web browsing. The most alarming figure was the 1.2TB written for 3 hours usage of Xcode.

At this point, with indicators leading to the fact that the 250GB SSD only has a rating of 150TBW, I am going to have to say that my opinion is that 16GB RAM is a requirement for anything other than just casual usage. Although the internal SSD may last far beyond the TBW rating, I would not personally be comfortable with going way beyond that rating on a non removable drive.

That being said, if you are only planning on keeping the M1 for a year, or are planning on selling it when the next model arrives, the 8GB RAM model is attractive.

I don't consider myself to be cheap, but I definitely don't like being taking advantage of. Now I am going to have to get over the mental hurdle of paying $200 for $25 worth of RAM ?

Yeah, I feel your concern and pain. I am only banking on the longevity of the SSD outlive the TBW rating by a mile (although I still have one week to return them and get more ram and storage), will probably shoot a email to BinaryFruit and share their response later in the week.

I too feel the 16GB RAM upgrade price is too much, being in Canada doesn't help either.

My Late 2014 15" MacBook Pro has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD, and I want my next main computer to have double the ram and SSD and last me another 6-8 years, so I am kind of using M1 to bridge the gap here. As many have pointed out, doing iOS development on M1 is so much faster, and unlike my 2014 MBP, it stays absolutely silent while doing so. I don't want to go back.

I would say, unless you really want to use the M1 Mac mini for very narrow purposes, the 256SSD probably gonna bother you much more. I started tinkering with Parallel Desktop preview and a Windows VM + Ubuntu Server VM, and they together uses 70GB of the SSD. Now I am in the dilemma of whether I should delete the Windows VM or remove a couple of iOS emulators.

If you can return them easily, I would suggest you to try these M1 Macs out. 16GB RAM and 512SSD is definitely the sweet spot; even 8GB RAM 512SSD will last you much longer due to higher TBW count.

 

[thinkingBanana]

Yikes! Yeah that seems troubling!

If that Mac had 16GB of RAM... I wonder if it would use a smaller amount of swap... or perhaps no swap at all?

Does anyone use XCode on a 32GB Intel Mac? I wonder what their swap usage is.

I wish someone with a 16GB M1 Mac can chime in and share some SSD data at some point

 

[OldMike]

Yeah, I feel your concern and pain. I am only banking on the longevity of the SSD outlive the TBW rating by a mile (although I still have one week to return them and get more ram and storage), will probably shoot a email to BinaryFruit and share their response later in the week.

I too feel the 16GB RAM upgrade price is too much, being in Canada doesn't help either.

I don't mean to repeat myself, but I posted what I ended up deciding to do about the M1 Macs in another thread:

With the 16GB RAM build to order Mac Minis being almost 4 weeks out, and my usual reluctance to jump on the first rev of any new hardware, I decided to compromise and pick up the base M1 8GB/256 Mini.

I decided to continue using my 2018 Mac Mini with 32GB RAM and eGPU as my primary machine, while getting the M1 Mini to play with and use for testing.

Once they release the more powerful Apple Silicon Macs, I will either sell this M1 or just keep it for other duties, and then take the plunge to get exactly what I want.

The introduction of the M1 is so exciting, I didn't want to miss out entirely on this experience.

So I guess I decided to cheat, and try your base config out also. I don't think it will be long before some new even better specced Apple Silicon Macs are released. At that point, when the dust settles, I think I will have a better idea as to where to invest my Mac dollars.

I'm going to just keep the base M1 until I can have a look at the complete new Mac lineup. The base config, which is already priced fairly, should be pretty easy to sell since I get the feeling that what comes next will only be more expensive.

 

[OldMike]

I wish someone with a 16GB M1 Mac can chime in and share some SSD data at some point

I think you are going to find that even 16GB won't be enough for some of the heavier tasks like virtualization. I would bet under the right circumstances, the upgraded Minis would even swap quite often.

I have 16GB in my 2015 MBP and I can definitely say it is not enough. My 2018 Mac Mini, with 32GB RAM, feels just right. I have a 2013 Mac Pro Trashcan with 64GB RAM, and I can tell that for my usage 32GB is spot on.

The fact that I have Raspberry Pis, that can take the burden off of virtualization, seemingly tucked in every corner doesn't hurt either. - Speaking of which, it is insane that I just bought a M1 Mac that has the same amount of RAM as my Raspberry Pis ?

 

[pldelisle]

I think you are going to find that even 16GB won't be enough for some of the heavier tasks like virtualization. I would bet under the right circumstances, the upgraded Minis would even swap quite often.

I have 16GB in my 2015 MBP and I can definitely say it is not enough. My 2018 Mac Mini, with 32GB RAM, feels just right. I have a 2013 Mac Pro Trashcan with 64GB RAM, and I can tell that for my usage 32GB is spot on.

The fact that I have Raspberry Pis, that can take the burden off of virtualization, seemingly tucked in every corner doesn't hurt either. - Speaking of which, it is insane that I just bought a M1 Mac that has the same amount of RAM as my Raspberry Pis ?

16 GB is indeed on the very low side with virtualization.

 

[thinkingBanana]

I think you are going to find that even 16GB won't be enough for some of the heavier tasks like virtualization. I would bet under the right circumstances, the upgraded Minis would even swap quite often.

I have 16GB in my 2015 MBP and I can definitely say it is not enough. My 2018 Mac Mini, with 32GB RAM, feels just right. I have a 2013 Mac Pro Trashcan with 64GB RAM, and I can tell that for my usage 32GB is spot on.

The fact that I have Raspberry Pis, that can take the burden off of virtualization, seemingly tucked in every corner doesn't hurt either. - Speaking of which, it is insane that I just bought a M1 Mac that has the same amount of RAM as my Raspberry Pis ?

They do benchmark 6 times faster than Raspberry Pi though http://hoult.org/arm64_mini.html?

 

[pshufd]

16 GB is indeed on the very low side with virtualization.

My Windows desktop has a 16 GB VM and an 8 GB VM. It would be tough to run on a 16 GB system.

 

[pldelisle]

My Windows desktop has a 16 GB VM and an 8 GB VM. It would be tough to run on a 16 GB system.

That’s quite high for a VM tho...

 

[JouniS]

That’s quite high for a VM tho...

I'm often running stuff in a 96 GB Ubuntu VM on my iMac. It's more convenient than debugging things in the cloud over unreliable home internet.

 

[pldelisle]

I'm often running stuff in a 96 GB Ubuntu VM on my iMac. It's more convenient than debugging things in the cloud over unreliable home internet.

What do you do for requiring such high amount of RAM ? Crunching data?

 

[pshufd]

I'm often running stuff in a 96 GB Ubuntu VM on my iMac. It's more convenient than debugging things in the cloud over unreliable home internet.

My son works with genetic datasets in that range.

 

[JouniS]

What do you do for requiring such high amount of RAM ? Crunching data?

Bioinformatics mostly, and sometimes data structure development without any particular applications in mind. The size of the raw data is often terabytes, but compression enables storing and querying it in just tens of gigabytes of memory.