Criteria to upgrade Ram on iMac Late 2015 5K Retina

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in Genius Bar
Is there a general rule regarding % of Ram usage when deciding to upgrade RAM?

One of my office machines used for commercials generally uses 26 to 28GB Ram out of 32GB... see pic.

This isn't a heavy workload level.  Standard.  


Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,486moderator
    OkiRun said:
    Is there a general rule regarding % of Ram usage when deciding to upgrade RAM?

    One of my office machines used for commercials generally uses 26 to 28GB Ram out of 32GB... see pic.

    This isn't a heavy workload level.  Standard.  


    How much swap space used is a good indicator of needing more RAM. Swap is used when the OS can't fit everything into memory and it has to move some out of RAM onto the internal storage (located in /var/vm). Another thing to check would be if an app has a memory leak using the memory tab in Activity Monitor, order from highest memory to lowest. Sometimes if an app has been open for a long time, it can hold onto more memory than it needs and restarting the app will free it back up. This can happen with simple things like the Finder or news feed apps as they cache previews of things in memory that are no longer needed but aren't cleaned out. Photoshop is quite bad for this if it's left open in the background.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    Marvin said:
    OkiRun said:
    Is there a general rule regarding % of Ram usage when deciding to upgrade RAM?

    One of my office machines used for commercials generally uses 26 to 28GB Ram out of 32GB... see pic.

    This isn't a heavy workload level.  Standard.  


    How much swap space used is a good indicator of needing more RAM. Swap is used when the OS can't fit everything into memory and it has to move some out of RAM onto the internal storage (located in /var/vm). Another thing to check would be if an app has a memory leak using the memory tab in Activity Monitor, order from highest memory to lowest. Sometimes if an app has been open for a long time, it can hold onto more memory than it needs and restarting the app will free it back up. This can happen with simple things like the Finder or news feed apps as they cache previews of things in memory that are no longer needed but aren't cleaned out. Photoshop is quite bad for this if it's left open in the background.

    Thank you ~
  • Reply 3 of 5
    Marvin said:
    OkiRun said:
    Is there a general rule regarding % of Ram usage when deciding to upgrade RAM?

    One of my office machines used for commercials generally uses 26 to 28GB Ram out of 32GB... see pic.

    This isn't a heavy workload level.  Standard.  


    How much swap space used is a good indicator of needing more RAM. Swap is used when the OS can't fit everything into memory and it has to move some out of RAM onto the internal storage (located in /var/vm). Another thing to check would be if an app has a memory leak using the memory tab in Activity Monitor, order from highest memory to lowest. Sometimes if an app has been open for a long time, it can hold onto more memory than it needs and restarting the app will free it back up. This can happen with simple things like the Finder or news feed apps as they cache previews of things in memory that are no longer needed but aren't cleaned out. Photoshop is quite bad for this if it's left open in the background.
    Do you know why 'Books' would be taking up RAM when the app is not open?




  • Reply 4 of 5
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,486moderator
    OkiRun said:
    Marvin said:
    OkiRun said:
    Is there a general rule regarding % of Ram usage when deciding to upgrade RAM?

    One of my office machines used for commercials generally uses 26 to 28GB Ram out of 32GB... see pic.

    This isn't a heavy workload level.  Standard.  


    How much swap space used is a good indicator of needing more RAM. Swap is used when the OS can't fit everything into memory and it has to move some out of RAM onto the internal storage (located in /var/vm). Another thing to check would be if an app has a memory leak using the memory tab in Activity Monitor, order from highest memory to lowest. Sometimes if an app has been open for a long time, it can hold onto more memory than it needs and restarting the app will free it back up. This can happen with simple things like the Finder or news feed apps as they cache previews of things in memory that are no longer needed but aren't cleaned out. Photoshop is quite bad for this if it's left open in the background.
    Do you know why 'Books' would be taking up RAM when the app is not open?




    The app might not have closed down properly. A few Apple apps do this like Quicktime Player. It will show as closed in the Dock but still have a running process in the background that can prevent ejecting disks. Those can be closed from the Activity Monitor by clicking the cross icon at the top left. Opening the app up again will reset it.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    Marvin said:
    OkiRun said:
    Marvin said:
    OkiRun said:
    Is there a general rule regarding % of Ram usage when deciding to upgrade RAM?

    One of my office machines used for commercials generally uses 26 to 28GB Ram out of 32GB... see pic.

    This isn't a heavy workload level.  Standard.  


    How much swap space used is a good indicator of needing more RAM. Swap is used when the OS can't fit everything into memory and it has to move some out of RAM onto the internal storage (located in /var/vm). Another thing to check would be if an app has a memory leak using the memory tab in Activity Monitor, order from highest memory to lowest. Sometimes if an app has been open for a long time, it can hold onto more memory than it needs and restarting the app will free it back up. This can happen with simple things like the Finder or news feed apps as they cache previews of things in memory that are no longer needed but aren't cleaned out. Photoshop is quite bad for this if it's left open in the background.
    Do you know why 'Books' would be taking up RAM when the app is not open?




    The app might not have closed down properly. A few Apple apps do this like Quicktime Player. It will show as closed in the Dock but still have a running process in the background that can prevent ejecting disks. Those can be closed from the Activity Monitor by clicking the cross icon at the top left. Opening the app up again will reset it.

    Appreciate the reply. I'll try your advice.  
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