Memory usage question - Page Ins/Page Outs

g_warreng_warren
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I'm trying to decide whether my parent's MacBook needs more memory. They don't use it for anything fancy, but it seems a little sluggish in iPhoto etc at times. I've been looking at Page In/Page Outs to get an idea of memory usage. Am I right in saying that the high the ratio the better?



On my G4 Mac Mini with 1Gb of RAM for example, I am currently at about 9:1, is that quite good?



At what sort of ratio would you say a mac needs more memory?



Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by G_Warren View Post


    I'm trying to decide whether my parent's MacBook needs more memory. They don't use it for anything fancy, but it seems a little sluggish in iPhoto etc at times. I've been looking at Page In/Page Outs to get an idea of memory usage. Am I right in saying that the high the ratio the better?



    On my G4 Mac Mini with 1Gb of RAM for example, I am currently at about 9:1, is that quite good?



    At what sort of ratio would you say a mac needs more memory?



    Thanks



    Not the ratio, but the absolute number of pageouts after running the machine for a day or so at normal usage.



    Pageins mean nothing, as OS X uses them to cache stuff and do file mapping.



    A few thousand pageouts is probably OK; hundreds of thousands is not. In between is .. in between.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    g_warreng_warren Posts: 713member
    Thanks very much for the info
  • Reply 3 of 3
    gdoggdog Posts: 224member
    with 2 gigs memory (macbook and imac) i never have even 1 pageout. so if you have pageouts yes you need memory.
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