Lion and Macs with 4GBs of RAM (or even 8GBs)

Lion actually uses less RAM than Snow Leopard because it has a more efficient virtual memory system. I agree that 4 GB is the minimum one should use, but there is nothing about Lion that will cause it to run poorly on only 4 GB. Lion runs great on my 4 GB machine. The few issues I have are not RAM related.

I disagree with your assessment. I certainly wouldn't want to use a 2GB system with Lion - I tried it and found I could run one program and a couple little utilities like LaunchBar and EverNote without PageOuts becoming an issue. I certainly couldn't run Lion the way I like to with 2GB. But 4 GB is what my office computer has and I've regularly run Word, Safari, Filemaker Pro, Mail, BusyCal, and several utilitiy programs and noticed no difference from Snow Leopard.

Would I rather use a computer with 8GB or more? Yes, because I like to launch my apps and have them ready when I want them rather than wait for Photoshop or Excel to load. So on my notebook I typically have 10-12 applications running - as well as my utilities like LaunchBar, EverNote, etc. 8GB lets me do this comfortably, with 4GB I'd see a lot of pageouts.

If a user's computer is slow under Lion but wasn't with Snow Leopard, before adding more RAM, the first thing to do is make sure the user has a solid Lion installation. The upgrade method Apple has chosen to use leaves too many incompatible (not crashing incompatible, mind you, just not Lion ready) plug-ins, services, contextual menus, etc. Get that taken care of, make sure the user has up-to-date software and drivers and often that slow Lion computer has begun to purr. And frankly, sometimes the only solution is to erase the drive and install Lion on an empty drive.

I'll throw my $.02 into the wishing well and say that I installed Lion on my early-2011 15" MBP and was not dissatisfied with the performance one Spotlight finished it's initial indexing. The OS was stable and fast for me in 4 GB of RAM. I did upgrade to 8 GB because I needed more RAM for Aperture, which is a really hog, and I have seen a general improvement overall with double the RAM, but if I had not been running Aperture all the time I would have been happy with the original 4 GB.

Why do new Macs only have 4GB then? Adding another 4GB or more by ordering from Apple Store is very expensive. I thinkt that the basic configuration should have 8GB when delivered with Lion.

If 64 bit mode is not for small computers, wouldn't be better that the system automatically uses 32 bit mode for most applications? Or alternatively, have an option for this instead of that the use shall downgrade manually for each large application.

People with Macs which have 4GBs of RAM are asking, "Why is my Mac so slow under Lion, when it worked fine with Snow Leopard?"

John- My Mac has 4gb of RAM. It's a mid-2007 20" iMac 2.4ghz Core2Duo, and while not at the very bottom of the compatibility list, it's bringing up the rear.

The first couple of hours after I upgraded to Lion over Snow Leopard, it was very slow and was running hot. This was due to the Spotlight indexing.

It was better after the indexing was complete, but was still noticeably slower for the next several days. After that, it was fine and now runs as fast or faster than it did under Snow Leopard. I don't know why; I think there might be some Versions background process which chums the processor until its initial "indexing" or whatever it's doing is complete.

I think all the statements in your OP are helpful to new upgraders, but I'm hearing many reports similar to mine. So in addition to all you said, I'll add: Give your new Lion time to settle in to its home, especially if you recently evicted a Snow Leopard from the same space. After a few days it will purr along just as well or better than the old cat.

Apple's RAM pricing is VERY unattractive, you have to pay 3-4 times the cost of buying the RAM and installing it yourself. And the RAM orginally installed you have to throw away.

I'm considering buying a new iMac, would prefer to buy it without any RAM at all, to a slightly lower cost. Or that Apple changes their pricing dramatically.

I upgraded the RAM on my 21.5" iMac (10,1) from 4 to 12Gb, using SO-DIMM sticks bought from an eBay seller at a cost of less than £100, and installed by myself. It has made a huge difference to the way Lion runs on that machine.

That said, my 11" MBA has only 2Gb, and yet it too runs very quickly under Lion - I haven't noticed any difference from SL. Clearly I am doing less on that machine, but even doing the same things (browsing with FireFox, word processing with Word and Pages), the Air seems as snappy as the iMac.

John Kitchen wrote:

Why should I change the apps to 32 bit mode? Why can't Apple "fix this problem" for me?

64 bit mode was introduced to allow apps to exploit large memories. Your Mac is not a large memory Mac. This is not a problem to be fixed by Apple. Use the app in 32 bit mode on a small memory Mac.

Sorry mate, I appreciate the hints, and I'll try to switch Safari to 32 bits. But this IS a problem it must be fixed by Apple (or Adobe?). Safari or Flash and probably the whole virtual memory management system is bugged. Otherwise someone should explain me why, still having 1GB of inactive memory, just watching youtube videos suddendly my virtual memory went from 0 to about 1GB or so. Obviously slowing down the system drammatically because paging out. And why closing and restarting Safari, reopening the old session the virtual memory decreased to 204MB giving me 1.34GB of free RAM.

I've just bought 2*2GB to my MacBook, for £25. 4*4GB would cost me less than £100.

Apple want £550 for the option to increase from the basic 4GB iMac configuration to 16GB. Thats's £550 for 12GB. Extortionate price!

You are probably right - at least, your explanation makes sense 🙂 It's an acceptable trade-off for me.

Running Lion server on a 2009 Mac Mini with 4 GB the computer is much faster than under SL server after everything is installed correctly.

Only issue is that after restart of the computer the DNS server needs long time to restart. It seems to be a bug i have the same on a 6 GB MacPro Quadpro