memory usage

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synchronicityii

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i don't have a good knowledge at all about computer stats and internals, but my free memory seems really low. i have the istat widget and it says that i only have 5-8mb free on my macbook (of 512). is this normal? my computer seems to be laggy in perfoming some functions, and i don't have any memory intensive programs. i usually will only run 2 programs at a time (excel and safari)
for reference it states that i have 140 mb wired, 228mb active, 112 inactive.
any input on this would be appreciated
 
The MacBook takes the video RAM from your main ram, so you actually have less than 512 MB of RAM. This is not enough RAM for normal usage, and if you use Rosetta, forget about it. A gigabyte is the minimum you want for good performance, 2 GB is better. Apple has installed 2 x 256 chips in your MacBook, so I would recommend getting a gigabyte chip, so that you can use at least one of those chips (total 1.25 GB RAM). A 2 x 512 configuration would get you up to 1 gig, but you'd be cutting off your options for upgrading, and you'd get less RAM overall. A 2 x 1 gigabyte option would be best (total 2 GB), but that can be pretty expensive.
 
I've been having the same problem with Safari and iTunes sucking up memory like it's going out of style. I have read that it's not wise to use two different size memory modules, though. Rather than buy two 512's and then possibly having to replace both of those someday, I'm gonna buy two 1 giggers. It's gonna cost me about $250, though. :(
 
Something you need to be aware of is that the amount of "free" memory is pretty misleading. Just because you have 5 - 8 MB free doesn't mean that more memory isn't available. The thing about Mac OS X (and most Unix OSes), is that they use whatever available memory as a disk cache. Your most recently used programs/files will remain in memory, even if you've closed them. The reason behind this is to speed up successive operations on files/programs you've recently used. This is what OS X calls "inactive" memory. So in order to get a good idea of how much memory you currently have available to programs, you need to add the "free" and "inactive" readings.

As for using RAM sticks of different sizes, don't worry about it. They should work and at most you'll see a speed hit of 2 - 3% (i.e. negligable). So upgrade what you can now.
 
Viro said:
As for using RAM sticks of different sizes, don't worry about it. They should work and at most you'll see a speed hit of 2 - 3% (i.e. negligable). So upgrade what you can now.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that info. I think I'll order a 1GB stick, and see how that goes. :)
 
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