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jcmurphy1971 Author

Level 1

1 points

Mac Pro Not Using all Available RAM?

So I'm running Snow Leopard on a Late 2010 Mac Pro... 2.8 Intel Xenon single processor... 8g RAM.

I would assume while running Mail, Safari, the OS, and rendering HD video in Final Cut X I would using almost all if not more than the 8g of RAM I have installed. However when I open Activity Monitor to see how much is being used, only 2-3g of the RAM is being used.

Is there an issue here potentially? Why won't all RAM be accessed?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Final Cut X, Final Cut 7

Posted on Apr 18, 2013 12:10 PM

36 replies

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Apr 21, 2013 1:14 PM in response to jcmurphy1971

They are not regular anything.

They are for notebooks, 2.5" and they have tiny tiny SSD "hyrid" used as fast cache that "intelligently" (not sure I believe it) stores the most used files in SSD. Similar to Apple Fusion drives.

Looking for a whiz bang. Stick to tried and true. Want SSD? get a Samsung 840 or 840 Pro. Want an enterprise drive? 5-yr warranted 7.2K you know where those are.

NAS RED are another in the lineup along with Black.

And there is the $220 1TB WD VelociRaptor, 10K. Another class of drives.

Apr 21, 2013 2:51 PM in response to jcmurphy1971

jcmurphy1971 wrote:

What's the deal with these Seagate Momentus drives? The 750g drive is $125. How is this compared to a regular 750g SSD?

They are antiques, it uses a small SSD cache to temporarily boost write speeds. A true 750GB SSD will cost well over $1000.

Mar 11, 2015 1:03 AM in response to The hatter

Hatter can you please help me out.

I am so confused with SO much conflicting information going on.

Earlier you helped me to upgrade my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 to 32GB of RAM, which I did, and it's all working.

My hardware specs say: 2.66GHZ, 2 processors, 4 cores, and 32GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM which I bought under your recommendation.

My OS is 10.6.8

I bought all of this ram to USE it but the main program I'm using (Vienna Ensemble Pro) is running our of memory EXTREMELY quickly.
Then I look at how much ram is being used in Activity Monitor when I've maxed out the ram that program, and it's barely using a quarter of my RAM - I have 25.26GB RAM free!!!
g

So then I read about needing to run in 64 bit Kernel, probably to use all the RAM - is this correct???
And I also read that I can't run a Mac Pro 1,1 in 64bit? - is that correct???

So is this RAM just NEVER going to be used by this computer?

What are my options???

Please help me out here!
Thanks.

lllaass

Level 10

210,417 points

Mar 11, 2015 1:18 AM in response to twistiejoe

That is correct, the MacPro 1.1 and 1.2 (2006 and 2007) is limited to 32 bit since the EFI is only 32 bit. There is a hack to run Mountain Lion and above on a 1.1 and 1.2 to get 64 bit

http://oemden.com/sixty-four-on-thirty-two-sfott/

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6009611

Mar 11, 2015 1:51 AM in response to lllaass

Many thanks lllaass

This is a little bit above my expertise ... I'm not quite sure how I install it ... is it saying I need to update to Mountain Lion? I'm not sure if I really wanna to do that either tho ...

I might give it a go tho, updating,
But might there be any other options?
If I can't get it updated, is there a way or place you know to get money for old computers? I might end up buying a newer tower and just using Migration Assistant or something ...
I hope I can use my old ram in a new machine too?
Any advice would be great thanks!!!

lllaass

Level 10

210,417 points

Mar 11, 2015 2:10 AM in response to twistiejoe

There is eBay and Craig's list.

Yesterday I just picked up a 2009 Mac Pro. You really want a 2009 or later.

You can always try the hack on blank HD so you do not risk erasing your data.

I am told that now the instructions are relatively to follow so I would give it a try.

Mac Pro Not Using all Available RAM?