Memory, what computer?

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Level 1

25 points

Memory, what computer?

I havea Mac OSX 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, Memory 20 GB 1333 Mhz DR3. I am always runninf out of memory. What might be the best solution? New computer? Seems I am maxed out.

Posted on May 5, 2012 5:01 PM

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Answer 1

May 5, 2012 5:08 PM in response to Darrell Hill

What are you running that is using that much RAM?

How are you able to determine that 20 GB of RAM is insufficent?

It sounds like your Mac might have a memory leak if you are finding that 20 GB of RAM is really insufficent.

IMHO some serious troubleshooting it called for before you switch to another Mac for more RAM.

Allan

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Answer 2

Darrell Hill Author

Level 1

25 points

May 5, 2012 5:55 PM in response to Allan Eckert

Thanks . I normally have Photoshop, iPhoto, Filemaker Pro and a browser going. How can I tell if I have a "leak"?

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Answer 3

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,492 points

May 5, 2012 6:05 PM in response to Darrell Hill

I think what Allen is asking is "What makes you think you're running out of memory?" Take a look here about how to use activity monitor

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

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Answer 4

May 5, 2012 6:50 PM in response to Darrell Hill

As Mike says you really need to start looking at exactly what your system is doing and Activity Monitor is a good place to start.

I have all that open plus Aperture and DreamWeaver with 12 GB of RAM. With all of that open I don't have enough page faulting for me to increase the RAM yet.

Allan

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Answer 5

Darrell Hill Author

Level 1

25 points

May 5, 2012 7:14 PM in response to Allan Eckert

THANKS. I keep getting message "start up is full" in Photoshop and Filemaker pro. My computer "info" shows I only have less than 300 MB, somestimes even less. My Acivity Monitor says I have 10.27 GB Free. This is after I stopped iTunes and trashed a number of photos on the desktop.

I have restarted a number of times.

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Answer 6

May 5, 2012 7:21 PM in response to Darrell Hill

300 MB of free space on your disk drive is no where near enough.

With about 10 GB of RAM free, you don't have a RAM problem. You have a disk drive that is overly full.

You are going to have to either move or delete some files until you have at least 15 % of the disk drive free.

Allan

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Answer 7

Darrell Hill Author

Level 1

25 points

May 5, 2012 7:23 PM in response to Allan Eckert

Allan - Thanks. I moved some programes to an external disk, I'll move more and see what happens.

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Answer 8

May 5, 2012 7:54 PM in response to Darrell Hill

Programs are probably the worst choice. They are generally speaking relatively small. Also many programs must be on the system disk to work properly.

A much better choice is any files you may have created such as movies, videos, photos and music. They usually take up way more space.

Also you can usually configure the programs work on the files from an external disk. I have all of my photos, music and video on a seconday internal drive in my Mac Pro.

Allan

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Answer 9

Darrell Hill Author

Level 1

25 points

May 5, 2012 8:05 PM in response to Allan Eckert

Thanks much - Looks like the photos and documents in Filemaker were probelm. I did not realize the space needed. I have lots of stuff. I back up with iClould(maxed out), Drop Box and iDrive.

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Answer 10

May 5, 2012 8:09 PM in response to Darrell Hill

You need an external drive.

All of that cloud stuff is way too slow to be really useful.

With my Mac Pro, I have three internal drive and two exteranl drives. I do all of my work on the internal drives and the external drives are used for backup. This include two backup each done with differnet software.

Allan

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