Memory Usage (Wired, Active, etc)

[DJAKO]

I recently upgraded my MBP C2D 2.33Ghz (Pre-Santa Rosa) to 3GB of RAM. Everything seems to be running much quicker now, less hiccups which is always good.

I run the widget iStatPro which displays a lot of useful information. Just was curious what the differences in the RAM section were.

They list, wired, active, inactive, free.

 

[kwood]

Explained here using the Activity Monitor. But same applies with iStat.

 

[DJAKO]

Explained here using the Activity Monitor. But same applies with iStat.

Great, thanks for the link.

 

[letswastetime]

i only have 25mb free. im assuming thats not very good?

 

[WildCowboy]

i only have 25mb free. im assuming thats not very good?

It's not the amount of "free" memory that's important. It's "free" + "inactive" that is a true measure of available memory. As long as that sum isn't tiny, you have memory left for when you need it.

Better measures of whether you have adequate RAM include your page outs (shouldn't be more than 10% or so of your page ins under normal operating circumstances), and just the general usability of your system. If it's sluggish, you'd probably benefit from more RAM.

 

[letswastetime]

It's not the amount of "free" memory that's important. It's "free" + "inactive" that is a true measure of available memory. As long as that sum isn't tiny, you have memory left for when you need it.

Better measures of whether you have adequate RAM include your page outs (shouldn't be more than 10% or so of your page ins under normal operating circumstances), and just the general usability of your system. If it's sluggish, you'd probably benefit from more RAM.

thanks for the info and suggestions. my macbook is a bit sluggish, i mean its only 1gb, and I did end up purchasing a 2gb ram stick to bump it up to 2.5gb so hopefully that helps in speeding things up.

 

[DJAKO]

thanks for the info and suggestions. my macbook is a bit sluggish, i mean its only 1gb, and I did end up purchasing a 2gb ram stick to bump it up to 2.5gb so hopefully that helps in speeding things up.

The jump from 1 to 2.5 is nice, you should notice a huge difference.