MacBook Pro purchasing question and the memory Leak issue.

[A1423]

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.

I would agree it shouldn't need this much ram. When getting the data from a back up made using AnyTrans, this issue occurs and it also takes forever to complete and has yet to do so. I am thinking it's using my ram as a cache for the somewhat large amount of data in the back up. Simply pulling the data from my phone is also seemingly a never ending process. I can repeat it and it functions pretty much the same. although the last time, my computer didn't really miss a beat. The times before that I had an extremely laggy computer.

Outside of Any trans. I would typically have Word, Outlook, Excel, Messages, Notes, Safari with an unknown number of tabs open, and music. With the outlier trading music for FaceTime. I was thinking I should probably be in 32gb of ram for my needs and desires of longevity, but that wasn't available at the time with the deal.

 

[Burnincoco]

Maybe Any Trans was written by kittens walking on keyboards.

 

[A1423]

Maybe Any Trans was written by kittens walking on keyboards.

LOL

 

[headlessmike]

I would agree it shouldn't need this much ram. When getting the data from a back up made using AnyTrans, this issue occurs and it also takes forever to complete and has yet to do so. I am thinking it's using my ram as a cache for the somewhat large amount of data in the back up. Simply pulling the data from my phone is also seemingly a never ending process. I can repeat it and it functions pretty much the same. although the last time, my computer didn't really miss a beat. The times before that I had an extremely laggy computer.

Outside of Any trans. I would typically have Word, Outlook, Excel, Messages, Notes, Safari with an unknown number of tabs open, and music. With the outlier trading music for FaceTime. I was thinking I should probably be in 32gb of ram for my needs and desires of longevity, but that wasn't available at the time with the deal.

Outside of AnyTrans your list of apps sounds like a typical day at the office for me. In addition to that I'll have any number of Python scripts running for crunching data (I work as a researcher in academia) and a few other tools for visualizing data and writing papers. I rarely ever get close to fully using the 16GB of RAM in my 14" M1 Pro MacBook. Getting a new machine with 64GB of RAM "just" for AnyTrans seems excessive.

 

[A1423]

Outside of AnyTrans your list of apps sounds like a typical day at the office for me. In addition to that I'll have any number of Python scripts running for crunching data (I work as a researcher in academia) and a few other tools for visualizing data and writing papers. I rarely ever get close to fully using the 16GB of RAM in my 14" M1 Pro MacBook. Getting a new machine with 64GB of RAM "just" for AnyTrans seems excessive.

Yeah I’m really wrestling with it. I’m still in the return window so I wouldn’t be eating the cost of the current machine. I feel like it would realistically be double my “future proof” of 32gb and for $400 whether sticking with M1 or going to M2 and I keep my uses on the Mac… That being said, maybe I do have a defective computer. I had everything open except anytrans with multiple tabs, but not tons of them open on safari. And I was at 13.55gb memory used. As of about an hour ago.

 

[headlessmike]

Yeah I’m really wrestling with it. I’m still in the return window so I wouldn’t be eating the cost of the current machine. I feel like it would realistically be double my “future proof” of 32gb and for $400 whether sticking with M1 or going to M2 and I keep my uses on the Mac… That being said, maybe I do have a defective computer. I had everything open except anytrans with multiple tabs, but not tons of them open on safari. And I was at 13.55gb memory used. As of about an hour ago.

macOS is good at using as much memory as it can, compressing and unloading things as needed when the memory fills up. So the amount of memory currently used isn’t necessarily a reliable metric as to how much memory you actually need. But I understand that it’s a tough decision. You don’t want to have to worry too much about running out down the line.

 

[A1423]

macOS is good at using as much memory as it can, compressing and unloading things as needed when the memory fills up. So the amount of memory currently used isn’t necessarily a reliable metric as to how much memory you actually need. But I understand that it’s a tough decision. You don’t want to have to worry too much about running out down the line.

I really really don't. At least with my last MBP, 2.8, I7, 16gb I could upgrade the drive and or ram. I'm pretty comfortable saying I need 1 TB and that is enough for me after 8 years with 512gb... but the ram... Now I get to guesstimate based on this last week with 16gb of ram and how long I keep my computers. Do I stick with the 16 isn't enough and go with the next level up which is 32gb of ram, and let the computer us SWAP(not knowing what that is really going to do to my SSD) OR do I go with 64gb of ram say that's way more than enough for me, I'll likely never encounter an issue where I need more, and AnyTrans can have a field day. Then we have price creep... for only $400 I can get 96gb of ram and feel satisfied I just couldn't go higher and whatever happens happens.

 

[svenmany]

Don't consider your memory problem with AnyTrans AT ALL when deciding the best memory configuration for your computer. The most trivial program, having the most trivial bug, can inadvertently consume all of your RAM, no matter how much you have.

A software bug might only manifest in certain situations and you might not have encountered those situations running AnyTrans on another computer.

 

[A1423]

Don't consider your memory problem with AnyTrans AT ALL when deciding the best memory configuration for your computer. The most trivial program, having the most trivial bug, can inadvertently consume all of your RAM, no matter how much you have.

A software bug might only manifest in certain situations and you might not have encountered those situations running AnyTrans on another computer.

I understand what you're saying, however, wouldn't that stand to reason that to run this program on these computers(since it is repeatable every time for me using a non off the wall portion of the program) I would need more ram? Especially since it spikes. uses an insane amount of swap(which I may not always have). I've already determined that 16gb just isn't enough of for me. Which means the next step up is 32gb of ram. Using over 13gb of ram for my general use case is too close to 16gb for me. This program still hasn't completed, and I can't help but wonder if it is the Ram issue causing its failure to complete.

 

[kitKAC]

https://www.reddit.com/r/iMobieInc/comments/xf5o74
In the last message in this thread, someone is running out of RAM trying to read their backed-up messages and they've got 64GB of RAM 😲

 

[A1423]

https://www.reddit.com/r/iMobieInc/comments/xf5o74
In the last message in this thread, someone is running out of RAM trying to read their backed-up messages and they've got 64GB of RAM

Great. I have a support ticket open with them too. For that exact problem listed.

 

[Honza1]

Great. I have a support ticket open with them too. For that exact problem listed.

Don't get your hopes up, that message was 4 months ago. Clearly, the company does not care. Fixing this ugly bug should not take 4 months. Time to looks for alternatives.

 

[svenmany]

I understand what you're saying, however, wouldn't that stand to reason that to run this program on these computers(since it is repeatable every time for me using a non off the wall portion of the program) I would need more ram? Especially since it spikes. uses an insane amount of swap(which I may not always have). I've already determined that 16gb just isn't enough of for me. Which means the next step up is 32gb of ram. Using over 13gb of ram for my general use case is too close to 16gb for me. This program still hasn't completed, and I can't help but wonder if it is the Ram issue causing its failure to complete.

I guess, now that @kitKAC posted that link to the memory leak in that program, maybe you won't really care about my answer to your question here.

Memory leaks don't usually stop. My code has had memory leaks; it just kept leaking. There really is no limit to how much RAM a buggy piece of software will consume. If you add 64 GB of RAM to a machine, AnyTrans will probably just consume it all. You've already said that it was consuming 63.18 GB of RAM.

I'm not sure you can conclude 16 GB isn't enough for you. But, I trust you if you've made a detailed analysis. Be careful how you interpret the memory statistics. I haven't studied this topic in a long time, but it used to be that the operating system's report of used memory included stuff the OS was caching for efficiency and would readily discard if necessary. A particular piece of software (written by Microsoft) that I run on a Windows server always consumes all available RAM for that efficiency reason. But, it quickly gives it up as other programs need it. The system always reports near 100% RAM utilization, which is often misunderstood.

I just ordered a new machine with 64 GB of RAM. That's because I know that the software I'm going to run will definitely make use of it (I will be configuring to use a lot of RAM). If you aren't price sensitive, then there's no downside to having a log of RAM. I find it enjoyable to have an abundance of anything. Even though I know I'll max out at two slices of pizza, while I'm eating those slices I enjoy the security of having an extra 10 slices in front of me.

 

[A1423]

I guess, now that @kitKAC posted that link to the memory leak in that program, maybe you won't really care about my answer to your question here.

Memory leaks don't usually stop. My code has had memory leaks; it just kept leaking. There really is no limit to how much RAM a buggy piece of software will consume. If you add 64 GB of RAM to a machine, AnyTrans will probably just consume it all. You've already said that it was consuming 63.18 GB of RAM.

I'm not sure you can conclude 16 GB isn't enough for you. But, I trust you if you've made a detailed analysis. Be careful how you interpret the memory statistics. I haven't studied this topic in a long time, but it used to be that the operating system's report of used memory included stuff the OS was caching for efficiency and would readily discard if necessary. A particular piece of software (written by Microsoft) that I run on a Windows server always consumes all available RAM for that efficiency reason. But, it quickly gives it up as other programs need it. The system always reports near 100% RAM utilization, which is often misunderstood.

I just ordered a new machine with 64 GB of RAM. That's because I know that the software I'm going to run will definitely make use of it (I will be configuring to use a lot of RAM). If you aren't price sensitive, then there's no downside to having a log of RAM. I find it enjoyable to have an abundance of anything. Even though I know I'll max out at two slices of pizza, while I'm eating those slices I enjoy the security of having an extra 10 slices in front of me.

I haven’t really made a detailed analysis. But I am consistently between 12 and 14gb of ram usage. For me that’s just a little too close for comfort. But I agree with you, I’d rather have too much than too little Ram and it really isn’t too much of an issue with price until 96gb. I just am having price creep on this computer and I don’t want to buy a Lamborghini, when a Porsche 911 will do. I’ll probably end up with an M2 Max 64gb more for piece of mind than need.