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megagram Author

Level 1

95 points

Over 3GB of swap files with 16GB of RAM?

Just bought a MBPr with 16gb of RAM (more for futureproofing than any actual need right now). I'm constantly checking Activity Monitor and "Free RAM" is always around 8GB or more. I notice, however, that the "Swap used" totals are quite high. I don't have any pageouts so why do I have so much swapspace being consumed? With an SSD drive in here, should I not be worried that the OS is using swapspace so much when it probalby doesn't need to?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 31, 2012 6:44 PM

Top-ranking reply

megagram Author

Level 1

95 points

Posted on Aug 2, 2012 4:42 PM

So I loaded up all my big memory users. I upped VBox's VM usage to 2GB to help speed along the process.

I've been checking Activity Monitor regularly and the free mem has not once gone below 8GB (big green part of the pie).

Just now I woke my MacBook from sleep and it hung for about 30 seconds. I checked the /var/vm folder and there are tons of swapfiles that were seemingly just created at that instant.

Wonder what's going on. It's fair to say the last time I used my MacBook there were no swapfiles.

Free memory has always been super high.

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73 replies

Csound1

Level 9

60,033 points

Aug 1, 2012 10:32 AM in response to megagram

How about answering my question?

See Below

Csound1

Level 9

60,033 points

Aug 1, 2012 2:59 PM in response to megagram

Virtual Box could still be the cause, try this: reboot, do not start VBox, give it an hour or so (doing whatever you normally do) and observe the swapfile, then add VBox to the mix and check again.