7 ms·

Just out of curiosity, what do you do with 16GB of RAM? I'm running OS X 10.10 on 4GB Macbook Air and I have faced no issues whatsoever. My general usage includ

Just out of curiosity, what do you do with 16GB of RAM? I'm running OS X 10.10 on 4GB Macbook Air and I have faced no issues whatsoever. My general usage includes Chrome with ~20 tabs open, a Vagrant VM, terminal and text editor.

rdl 12y ago
Chrome with 300 tabs open. Some VMware with several VMs (I'm usually doing simulated network stuff).
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "Chrome with 300 tabs open." Why? Genuinely curious why anyone would ever need that many tabs open. Why can't you use bookmarks/reading list? It doesn't seem possible that you would be actively using all of those regularly enough to need them all open.
  - Pxtl 12y ago
    It's not that they use them all, just as you work you keep adding more tabs and there's no GC for tabs.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      Of course but why not close of bookmark the ones you're done with (i.e. not going to use for the next several hours)?
      - Pxtl 12y ago
        That sounds like work.
      - wyclif 12y ago
        It's not really work IMO, as another commenter claims (assuming he/she wasn't being sarcastic, which is entirely possible). If you have the pinboard.in extension, it's a simple ⌘-D to save.
    - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
      Every now and then I carry out my own manual garbage collection of tabs: iterate through, copy URL of any I don't really need right now, collect the URLs in a text file somewhere. I usually end up losing the text file but no disaster ensues. I'm currently running with 19 tabs open. Any more than that and it becomes too difficult to identify them. Ideally, I try to trim it down to about 10 when I can. How anyone can be even remotely productive with 300 open is beyond me.
      - _deh 12y ago
        I've found Evernote's web clipper to be a good replacement for that same process.
  - fredley 12y ago
    Garbage Collector for tabs: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-garbage-collector/pnhaaefbdpppebmmlikhfgpdjggdklln https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-garbage-collec...
HashNuke 12y ago
When away from a power socket, I use Safari instead of Chrome. Saves battery a LOT. Was able to run 11" Air with 19 tabs on Safari and with vim (on iTerm). 2hrs later still had 95% battery left.
- npongratz 12y ago
  > When away from a power socket, I use Safari instead of Chrome. Saves battery a LOT. Were you comparing Safari with 0 extensions vs. Chrome with 0 extensions? Or does each have a different extension load? I will often fall back to Safari if a page doesn't render properly in Chrome, but that's because I installed a bunch of extensions on Chrome and have consciously left Safari pure as the driven snow. It's a different problem domain, but I know certain extensions can use resources in surprising ways.
  - schrodinger 12y ago
    One factor is that I believe chrome has flash by default, and Safari does not
    - STRML 12y ago
      It's not just that. I see nearly 2x better battery life using Safari over Chrome on a 15" rMBP, and I have plugins turned off (click to play). It just uses a lot less CPU, full stop. I don't know what the real difference is, but I suspect Safari just does a better job of idling than Chrome does.
      - rmckayfleming 12y ago
        When you click the battery dropdown on the top right, Chrome is consistently listed as an "Apps Using Significant Energy". On previous releases of OS X I also noticed that by default it would use my dedicated GPU at all times, whereas Safari would not (not sure if this is still true).
        12y ago
robin_reala 12y ago
I found 8GB a bit pokey, 16GB much better. Generally have open Firefox, Chrome, Sublime, Photoshop, Illustrator, an IE testing VM, Terminal running a couple of web app servers, Spotify and maybe another Windows VM with Visual Studio and Firefox (recent project has involved some .NET). I recognise that my workflow would be a bit RAM heavy though.
ceeK 12y ago
I run on 16GB. The thing is, it always seems to use up the amount of RAM you have. I don't have much open (XCode, Sketch, Chrome), but it's still using 15.36GB. That's including 720MB XCode, and 325MB Sketch. It's storing 9GB for apps and 4.8GB for file storage. Generally, this just makes things that bit faster. The more you can store in RAM (even trivial things), the better. I've never had any slow downs, and don't have to worry about opening Photoshop and Illustrator along with XCode, Sketch and 20 Chrome tabs.
- hvidgaard 12y ago
  I'm not too familiar with the internals of OSX, but I would be very surprised if that ram is actually really used. More than likely, it's just caching of things already on the harddrive. If you have a old fashioned mechanical drive it makes a lot of sense, but with modern SSDs, I doubt you'll feel it much. Unless you're a true poweruser, no one really needs more than 8gb by todays standards. I have 32gb because I maintain and develop 4 different codebases each with their own setup in different VMs. If I didn't do that, I could manage with 8gb just fine.
ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
I have a 2013 Air with 8 GB RAM, and there's no way I'd ever consider running Yosemite with less.
raverbashing 12y ago
Must be the SSD then, because my MBP was a drag with only 4GB (even on 10.8) Now, 16GB, that's very good
- stephenhuey 12y ago
  I feel it's definitely the SSD. In the summer of 2012 I purchased a MacBook Air with SSD and it always felt a bit more snappy than a MacBook Pro purchased at work in the same summer. RAM was equal, so the difference was that the MacBook Pro was not packing an SSD.
xgbi 12y ago
Multiple VMs. You use aboug 3G per VM, + the OSX kernel and RAM allocation quickly amounts to close to 3-4GB. I can't work with less than 8G, and 16G makes it about bearable.

rdl 12y ago

Chrome with 300 tabs open. Some VMware with several VMs (I'm usually doing simulated network stuff).

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "Chrome with 300 tabs open." Why? Genuinely curious why anyone would ever need that many tabs open. Why can't you use bookmarks/reading list? It doesn't seem possible that you would be actively using all of those regularly enough to need them all open.
- Pxtl 12y ago
  It's not that they use them all, just as you work you keep adding more tabs and there's no GC for tabs.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    Of course but why not close of bookmark the ones you're done with (i.e. not going to use for the next several hours)?
    - Pxtl 12y ago
      That sounds like work.
    - wyclif 12y ago
      It's not really work IMO, as another commenter claims (assuming he/she wasn't being sarcastic, which is entirely possible). If you have the pinboard.in extension, it's a simple ⌘-D to save.
  - oneeyedpigeon 12y ago
    Every now and then I carry out my own manual garbage collection of tabs: iterate through, copy URL of any I don't really need right now, collect the URLs in a text file somewhere. I usually end up losing the text file but no disaster ensues. I'm currently running with 19 tabs open. Any more than that and it becomes too difficult to identify them. Ideally, I try to trim it down to about 10 when I can. How anyone can be even remotely productive with 300 open is beyond me.
    - _deh 12y ago
      I've found Evernote's web clipper to be a good replacement for that same process.
- fredley 12y ago
  Garbage Collector for tabs: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-garbage-collector/pnhaaefbdpppebmmlikhfgpdjggdklln https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-garbage-collec...

HashNuke 12y ago

When away from a power socket, I use Safari instead of Chrome. Saves battery a LOT. Was able to run 11" Air with 19 tabs on Safari and with vim (on iTerm). 2hrs later still had 95% battery left.

npongratz 12y ago
> When away from a power socket, I use Safari instead of Chrome. Saves battery a LOT. Were you comparing Safari with 0 extensions vs. Chrome with 0 extensions? Or does each have a different extension load? I will often fall back to Safari if a page doesn't render properly in Chrome, but that's because I installed a bunch of extensions on Chrome and have consciously left Safari pure as the driven snow. It's a different problem domain, but I know certain extensions can use resources in surprising ways.
- schrodinger 12y ago
  One factor is that I believe chrome has flash by default, and Safari does not
  - STRML 12y ago
    It's not just that. I see nearly 2x better battery life using Safari over Chrome on a 15" rMBP, and I have plugins turned off (click to play). It just uses a lot less CPU, full stop. I don't know what the real difference is, but I suspect Safari just does a better job of idling than Chrome does.
    - rmckayfleming 12y ago
      When you click the battery dropdown on the top right, Chrome is consistently listed as an "Apps Using Significant Energy". On previous releases of OS X I also noticed that by default it would use my dedicated GPU at all times, whereas Safari would not (not sure if this is still true).
      - 12y ago

robin_reala 12y ago

I found 8GB a bit pokey, 16GB much better. Generally have open Firefox, Chrome, Sublime, Photoshop, Illustrator, an IE testing VM, Terminal running a couple of web app servers, Spotify and maybe another Windows VM with Visual Studio and Firefox (recent project has involved some .NET). I recognise that my workflow would be a bit RAM heavy though.

ceeK 12y ago

I run on 16GB. The thing is, it always seems to use up the amount of RAM you have. I don't have much open (XCode, Sketch, Chrome), but it's still using 15.36GB. That's including 720MB XCode, and 325MB Sketch. It's storing 9GB for apps and 4.8GB for file storage. Generally, this just makes things that bit faster. The more you can store in RAM (even trivial things), the better. I've never had any slow downs, and don't have to worry about opening Photoshop and Illustrator along with XCode, Sketch and 20 Chrome tabs.

hvidgaard 12y ago
I'm not too familiar with the internals of OSX, but I would be very surprised if that ram is actually really used. More than likely, it's just caching of things already on the harddrive. If you have a old fashioned mechanical drive it makes a lot of sense, but with modern SSDs, I doubt you'll feel it much. Unless you're a true poweruser, no one really needs more than 8gb by todays standards. I have 32gb because I maintain and develop 4 different codebases each with their own setup in different VMs. If I didn't do that, I could manage with 8gb just fine.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

I have a 2013 Air with 8 GB RAM, and there's no way I'd ever consider running Yosemite with less.

raverbashing 12y ago

Must be the SSD then, because my MBP was a drag with only 4GB (even on 10.8) Now, 16GB, that's very good

stephenhuey 12y ago
I feel it's definitely the SSD. In the summer of 2012 I purchased a MacBook Air with SSD and it always felt a bit more snappy than a MacBook Pro purchased at work in the same summer. RAM was equal, so the difference was that the MacBook Pro was not packing an SSD.

xgbi 12y ago

Multiple VMs. You use aboug 3G per VM, + the OSX kernel and RAM allocation quickly amounts to close to 3-4GB. I can't work with less than 8G, and 16G makes it about bearable.