MacBook Pro purchasing question and the memory Leak issue.

[A1423]

Hello,

I have the problem below that I am trying to figure out.

Problem:

I recently took advantage of a Best Buy sale and got a M1 Pro 16gb/1tb MBP. I ran out of ram on the second day I used it while using Anytrans. How can I tell if this is my use case for which I just need to return the computer, and at this point go with an M2 Max 32gb or above ram spec, it is the memory leak issue currently plaguing the previous and current OS, or some combination of both. It does't seem to happen unless I use AnyTrans. I don't have another computer to test it on.

Edited to add that the memory pressure window in Activity Monitor is Gold and Red. Not at all green. It does appear it is a ram issue, based on the ram pressure. How do I determine how much ram I need to get. I don't want to go through this multiple times, but I also don't want to over buy ram I'll never see either.

My Use Case:

I upgraded from a mid 2015 MBP 15inch with the max upgraded processor and 16 gb of ram. I never had this issue, but I also have a lot more stuff on my phone than I once had. Outside of AnyTrans, I pretty much just use it for the office suite , FaceTime, managing my network, and sometimes I tinker with some virtual machines. It worked very well for 8 of its 10 year product life cycle and I would like to duplicate that longevity and reliability as much as I can, so I thought I got more computer than I realistically needed again.

Thank you all for your replies.

 

[ilikewhey]

memory leak is definitely a thing in ventura and worse on monterey, windowservers being one of the main culprit. folks on here have testified that with just couple tabs along some apps is enough to saturate 16gb

 

[A1423]

memory leak is definitely a thing in ventura and worse on monterey, windowservers being one of the main culprit. folks on here have testified that with just couple tabs along some apps is enough to saturate 16gb

That's really terrible and irritating. I feel like my issue may be specific to this program as I have not experienced it using another program and I can duplicate it on this program every time.

Providing it isn't the very irritating memory leak issue that would ordinarily have me waiting until the next release to see if they solved it. How would I go about upgrading the ram so that I am not over buying ram I am never going to use, but also providing enough head room should I need another ram intensive task. I am thinking 32gb or 64gb, but beyond that I just can't see myself spending the money or even getting 96gb of ram to solve this one issue. I don't really have a head thing about bragging how much ram I have, but I do like having more than I would ordinarily ever use. Also, If it is the memory leak issue, would stepping up the ram in the manor above, solve/compensate for my specific issue?

 

[ilikewhey]

That's really terrible and irritating. I feel like my issue may be specific to this program as I have not experienced it using another program and I can duplicate it on this program every time.

Providing it isn't the very irritating memory leak issue that would ordinarily have me waiting until the next release to see if they solved it. How would I go about upgrading the ram so that I am not over buying ram I am never going to use, but also providing enough head room should I need another ram intensive task. I am thinking 32gb or 64gb, but beyond that I just can't see myself spending the money or even getting 96gb of ram to solve this one issue. I don't really have a head thing about bragging how much ram I have, but I do like having more than I would ordinarily ever use. Also, If it is the memory leak issue, would stepping up the ram in the manor above, solve/compensate for my specific issue?

this is with 30+ tabs on chrome, 6 on safari, final cut, lightroom, SQL database, and electron apps such as slack and teams, occasionally when i launch a final cut project it swaps 20-24gb. and windowservers jump through the roof, again, my use case is probably worst case scenario, but its super easy to push up your ram usage if you are not careful.

edit, i originally was aiming for 32gb of ram as well, but after due consideration that my new job might entails my workload, i decided to opt for the 64gb and reluctantly getting the m1 max, otherwise the m1 pro would've been more than enough for me.

 

[A1423]

View attachment 2144314
this is with 30+ tabs on chrome, 6 on safari, final cut, lightroom, SQL database, and electron apps such as slack and teams, occasionally when i launch a final cut project it swaps 20-24gb. and windowservers jump through the roof, again, my use case is probably worst case scenario, but its super easy to push up your ram usage if you are not careful.

edit, i originally was aiming for 32gb of ram as well, but after due consideration that my new job might entails my workload, i decided to opt for the 64gb and reluctantly getting the m1 max, otherwise the m1 pro would've been more than enough for me.

AnyTrans is currently using 63.18gb of memory, Windows Server is using 378.6mb. A rough snapshot of my memory usage is below. I only experience this when running AnyTrans. Based on these numbers I would say it forces me into at least 64gb, but the first time I saw this occur I believe it was over 80gb of swap.

I really am not sure what to do. I have messaged iMobie to see what they say and I am waiting to hear back.

in the time I took that photo, and uploaded it, Swap changed to 40.79gb and memory used is 13.99gb. This is all with the application memory pop up warning still visible and my ability to do things with some degree of efficiency is still there.

Edited to add that this was with Activity monitor, AnyTrans and safari open.

I force quit safari after I posted this reply, and then closed the system application memory warning pop up. It has been functioning, or at-least gives the appearance of functioning. Even with yellow and red pressure warnings. I have no idea what’s going on/what do do. It’s showing green pressure right now.

 

[A1423]

It’s still running. I can’t figure out whether it’s just something that takes a long time, with a memory spike, or it hit a wall and is just hung. And my computer just isn’t powerful enough for this process.

 

[ilikewhey]

AnyTrans is currently using 63.18gb of memory, Windows Server is using 378.6mb. A rough snapshot of my memory usage is below. I only experience this when running AnyTrans. Based on these numbers I would say it forces me into at least 64gb, but the first time I saw this occur I believe it was over 80gb of swap.

I really am not sure what to do. I have messaged iMobie to see what they say and I am waiting to hear back.

in the time I took that photo, and uploaded it, Swap changed to 40.79gb and memory used is 13.99gb. This is all with the application memory pop up warning still visible and my ability to do things with some degree of efficiency is still there.

Edited to add that this was with Activity monitor, AnyTrans and safari open.

I force quit safari after I posted this reply, and then closed the system application memory warning pop up. It has been functioning, or at-least gives the appearance of functioning. Even with yellow and red pressure warnings. I have no idea what’s going on/what do do. It’s showing green pressure right now.
View attachment 2144325

wow you actually surpassed me in mem swap 😂

for your use case, and if this is a snapshot of your daily routine, yeah i would get 64gb, look around for m1 14inch with 64gb, micro center had them on sale for 2500 couple months back.

 

[A1423]

wow you actually surpassed me in mem swap 😂

for your use case, and if this is a snapshot of your daily routine, yeah i would get 64gb, look around for m1 14inch with 64gb, micro center had them on sale for 2500 couple months back.

Gotta love it when it a program I use a few times a month skyrockets my computer price past what it ordinarily would be had I not used the app.

 

[ilikewhey]

Gotta love it when it a program I use a few times a month skyrockets my computer price past what it ordinarily would be had I not used the app.

you know whats funny? i replicated my workflow on my gaming pc with 64gb of ram, and it never gone pass 30gb.

 

[A1423]

you know whats funny? i replicated my workflow on my gaming pc with 64gb of ram, and it never gone pass 30gb.

You know, that's pretty interesting. I may do some investigation on that, I may be able to solve this for less by getting a PC and keeping my current computer. The flip side is I am still in the return window and I have already run into an issue where I ran out of ram, for the first time in my life. It's definitely concerning to me in a computer I am keeping for about a decade.

 

[ilikewhey]

You know, that's pretty interesting. I may do some investigation on that, I may be able to solve this for less by getting a PC and keeping my current computer. The flip side is I am still in the return window and I have already run into an issue where I ran out of ram, for the first time in my life. It's definitely concerning to me in a computer I am keeping for about a decade.

yeah i come to some sort of conclusion that macos just simply uses more ram to keep everything super fluid, it will use as much ram as you have and delegate the usage later.

 

[A1423]

yeah i come to some sort of conclusion that macos just simply uses more ram to keep everything super fluid, it will use as much ram as you have and delegate the usage later.

That’s pretty annoying. I love the design of the computer, Time Machine and the integration with my phone, but I’d consider this a pretty big negative while they have a base of 16gb of ram in their most powerful laptops.

 

[donawalt]

@A1423 have you done some Google searching on memory leaks in Anhytrans on mac? I did a little looking, I am not a user of that app but I see people complaining on reddit and other places for the last year about memory leaks. This may be an app problem that does or does not go away with more memory. Just a thought.

 

[A1423]

@A1423 have you done some Google searching on memory leaks in Anhytrans on mac? I did a little looking, I am not a user of that app but I see people complaining on reddit and other places for the last year about memory leaks. This may be an app problem that does or does not go away with more memory. Just a thought.

I saw something on Reddit, but it was for a different OS. I have a ton of stuff it has to transfer on my phone, that made me think it was possibly using the memory as some sort of cache, or it was just a power hungry process.

I know after the very high spike shown in this thread when I closed a couple apps and then the warning pop up. My pressure went down and nothing seemed to happen in the app. The progress bar was still bouncing, yet I could surf the internet like it was closed, things were open etc. It stayed that way for hours.

I may try running it overnight with nothing running to see if it hangs, but it’s a puzzling issue that I think appears to lend itself to a memory leak theory.

 

[A1423]

@A1423 have you done some Google searching on memory leaks in Anhytrans on mac? I did a little looking, I am not a user of that app but I see people complaining on reddit and other places for the last year about memory leaks. This may be an app problem that does or does not go away with more memory. Just a thought.

Does adding more ram like I am likely to do/considering generally help with this? I was looking online at pricing and for $600 more I am in the M2 MAX with 64gb of ram vs the M1 Max with 64gb of ram. It's worth the extra $600 to me, to have the latest, but if it probably won't do anything, I don't know if it is worth it.

If I increase my ram, does it protect my SSD from the insane swap there by increasing by SSD's longevity? IE I get the 64gb of ram, and never or very rarely see swap?

 

[ilikewhey]

Does adding more ram like I am likely to do/considering generally help with this? I was looking online at pricing and for $600 more I am in the M2 MAX with 64gb of ram vs the M1 Max with 64gb of ram. It's worth the extra $600 to me, to have the latest, but if it probably won't do anything, I don't know if it is worth it.

If I increase my ram, does it protect my SSD from the insane swap there by increasing by SSD's longevity? IE I get the 64gb of ram, and never or very rarely see swap?

for sure if you get more ram you will see less swap, OS don't just swap to ssd for fun afterall.

as for m1 vs m2, you gotta ask yourself if wifi 6e hdmi 2.1 and some other minor upgrades are worth the extra cost. cause cpu wise its still 5nm, so don't expect any outrageous increase in performance.

 

[A1423]

for sure if you get more ram you will see less swap, OS don't just swap to ssd for fun afterall.

as for m1 vs m2, you gotta ask yourself if wifi 6e hdmi 2.1 and some other minor upgrades are worth the extra cost. cause cpu wise its still 5nm, so don't expect any outrageous increase in performance.

The only reason I mentioned that, was I was using half my ram for outlook and noticed that I had 135mb for swap. I am finding the new Macs are a different beast than when I got my previous one in 2015/16.

I just installed ceiling mounted wifi 6E access points and a new home theater, so I would be able to make use of those new features. Plus likely having an extra year or so of software support would be nice. My previous MBP just lost out on OS support with the last release before it kicked the bucket. I'm guessing because of the move to Apple Silicon. Providing the same thing happens with whatever I get now, I will be keeping it for about the same 8-10 years.

 

[ilikewhey]

The only reason I mentioned that, was I was using half my ram for outlook and noticed that I had 135mb for swap. I am finding the new Macs are a different beast than when I got my previous one in 2015/16.

I just installed ceiling mounted wifi 6E access points and a new home theater, so I would be able to make use of those new features. Plus likely having an extra year or so of software support would be nice. My previous MBP just lost out on OS support with the last release before it kicked the bucket. I'm guessing because of the move to Apple Silicon. Providing the same thing happens with whatever I get now, I will be keeping it for about the same 8-10 years.

given m2 is build on same architecture and die size as the m1, i suspect they both will get equal amount of duration for support.

 

[A1423]

given m2 is build on same architecture and die size as the m1, i suspect they both will get equal amount of duration for support.

Do you think that the incremental processor increases as well as the reasonable increase in ram I will be making to avoid as much swap as I can increase the longevity of the computer? I’m trying to replicate the 8-10 years I had with the previous one. Do think that’s unlikely to happen?

 

[ilikewhey]

Do you think that the incremental processor increases as well as the reasonable increase in ram I will be making to avoid as much swap as I can increase the longevity of the computer? I’m trying to replicate the 8-10 years I had with the previous one. Do think that’s unlikely to happen?

like zero swap under any scenario? that is going to be pretty hard to predict, i do have to say with today's ssd technology, swapping isn't as nearly as detrimental to your ssd as say 5-6 years ago when some ssd lacks garbage collection or TRIM.

you can stretch out your ownership of your mac to 8-10 years even with some swapping, however if you just want absolute zero swapping, and given what you demonstrate your usage, i would say 64gb is plenty. and if you really want that extra cushion, the m2 maxes out at 96gb. however you be paying 4k for that.

 

[Fishrrman]

What is Anytrans FOR...?

Could you either stop using it, or find a replacement?

 

[A1423]

What is Anytrans FOR...?

Could you either stop using it, or find a replacement?

I primarily use it to save and convert messages in PDF form. Why Apple hasn’t allowed that seemingly easy thing to do, really is irritating. I’m unaware of a replacement.

 

[A1423]

like zero swap under any scenario? that is going to be pretty hard to predict, i do have to say with today's ssd technology, swapping isn't as nearly as detrimental to your ssd as say 5-6 years ago when some ssd lacks garbage collection or TRIM.

you can stretch out your ownership of your mac to 8-10 years even with some swapping, however if you just want absolute zero swapping, and given what you demonstrate your usage, i would say 64gb is plenty. and if you really want that extra cushion, the m2 maxes out at 96gb. however you be paying 4k for that.

No, but I’d like to prevent it as much as I possibly can. I doubt I’m going with 96gb of ram though I do like the idea of the piece of mind it gives me. I think it’s an extra $400 for that piece of mind, and I don’t think it’s really worth it as I’m pushing into 64 because of one program. I’m probably going to end up with the M2 Max 64gb/1tb SSD.

 

[ilikewhey]

look for m1 max 64gb 1tb option, they should save u considerable upfront cost, only go for m2 max if you really want the 96gb option.

 

[Honza1]

99.999% of applications which decide to occupy 63GB of memory are poorly written applications. No amount of hardware will fix this and OS/hardware are likely innocent. What about simply quitting the application and restarting? That should reset the memory leak.
I have M1 mini with 8GB RAM and can run Parallels with Windows 11 ARM in it with reasonable speed and no complaints about memory. I am sure this pages memory to SSD like crazy, but my memory indicator is still green and system is still responsive. That suggests that memory management of current ARM macOS is pretty good.
As far as I can say from Google searches, Anytrans serves to move stuff between iOS and macOS, and that should not require any significant memory footprint. If it does, it is bad application, and needs to be fixed by authors - not by going to crazy hardware specs.