I am using iStat Pro and I have 512MB RAM on my MBP. It says that 85 is being used for Wired, 202 is being used for Active, 217 is being used for Inactive. Which means I only have like 8MB left of memory. What is the Wired and inactive being used for? The only applications i have open are Safari and MSN Messenger. Is it time for me to upgrade to 2GB RAM? Because right now it is quite sluggish. I cant even open Garage Band yet alone make music on it.
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RAM Usage question
- Thread starter Jamesw
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"Wired" and "Active" RAM are the only ones that actually use RAM.
To see how much RAM you have ready and available, add together the "Free" RAM, and the "Inactive" RAM.
To see how much RAM you have ready and available, add together the "Free" RAM, and the "Inactive" RAM.
Give it a restart and see if you get back your RAM. That inactive ram can still be used by the system whenever. I'm guessing you haven't given the machine a restart in a while..
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You can learn about what the different categories are here. 512 MB of RAM really isn't enough for the Intel Macs to function properly, so you should consider upgrading. Take a look at your page ins/outs in Activity Monitor...if you have a fair number of page outs, you should invest in more RAM...watch the ratio page ins to page outs. If the ratio gets below maybe 4:1 or 3:1, it's time to think about more RAM. But the best indicator is your user experience...if it feels sluggish and you're getting lots of "beachballing," that's a good sign that more RAM will help.
