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User profile for user: dave coyle1
dave coyle1 Author
User level: Level 2
240 points

iStat pro

just downloaded a handy widget called iStat pro - lets you monitor every aspect of your system. It features 9 sections that monitor everything from cpu, memory and disk usage to which processes are using the most cpu.

I was just looking at the RAM part which stated the following

Wired - 492MB
Active - 141GB
Inactive - 30MB
Free - 2.08GB

I have 4GB of RAM installed. DOes this mean that the free RAM isnt used at all?

G5, Mac OS X (10.4)

Posted on Apr 6, 2009 3:23 PM

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User profile for user: neuroanatomist
neuroanatomist
User level: Level 8
48,993 points

Apr 6, 2009 4:00 PM in response to dave coyle1

Free RAM is available to be used, but you're not using it (yet). The 'real' free RAM is the sum of free + inactive (which is RAM that was being used, but currently is not). See this link for a description of the relevant terms:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

Note that 4 GB is a lot of RAm, relatively speaking. My max is 2 GB, and even running several apps, including running Windows in a virtual machine (via Parallels), I still have >500 MB free. The Mac OS is very good at memory management.
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iStat pro

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