Garageband slow -add more GB to 2011 iMac?

pauldepechemode66 wrote:

ive never been into activity monitor before so couldnt say to be honest. all i use is safari , itunes, and iphoto really....all my big music photo and movie files are on an external hard drive

That may be the reason.

Copy one that stutters from the external to the internal and test again running the file from the internal drive.

Add more Ram, as much as you can.

pauldepechemode66 wrote:

Ok thank you for your time,

could you elaborate just a bit. I mean is the computer really very very low on Ram with just GB on? I find it hard to get my head around it as the imac is barely 7 months old and nearly all files as I say are on external drive.

can you move whole programs like iphoto and i movie to an external to save space in the internal or is that not advisable just as an afterthought?

Don't confuse RAM (memory) with Hard drive storage space, they are not the same.

You have 4G total Ram, in use (from your last posting) your computer required more than that so 1.41G was swapped out to disk (which is significantly slower than Ram)

Buy more Ram, 8G is possible (total) and 16G may be possible. Buy from Crucial or OWC, you will have to remove the existing Ram to make way for 2 x4 or 2 x 8G chips.

You're welcome.

pauldepechemode66 wrote:

ah thanks for the great help

Apologies, I made an error, your iMac has 4 slots for Ram, therefore you do not have to remove the existing Ram unless you choose to go above 20GB (2x2 original chips and 2x8GB additional chips)