Is there enough RAM for Macbook Air 4GB?

eu222012-07-13 07:48:42

macbook

eu22, 2012-07-13 07:48:42

I'm going to take a Macbook Air 13'' with 4GB of RAM, it's almost impossible to find a custom model with 8gb. I'm going to use for XCode, a couple of virtual machines, and then the standard set ... In general, a workhorse.
I understand that the question is rather rhetorical, but still.
How critical is 4gb of RAM in this case? Interested in personal experience.

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9 answer(s)

karenishe, 2012-07-13
@karenishe

I advise you to buy maximum RAM for any Apple laptops. Now they have a limit of 8Gb and 2 slots (although I don’t know how exactly on Air, it’s exactly like that on firmware). If you buy a laptop with 4Gb, then there will be 2 cards of 2Gb each (maybe, in general, 1 of 2Gb and one slot - you need to clarify). In any case, in order to replace it with 8Gb, you will have to throw out all the old cards and buy all 8Gb again.
For 10 years of using Apple laptops, they have never upgraded anything in them except for the RAM (there is nothing more, in fact :)

Evgeny Yablokov, 2012-07-13
@Gular

In principle, I am satisfied with 4Gb on my iMac and MBP Mid2010. The only thing that makes me feel uncomfortable is Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac. I think, however, partly this is due to the HDD, not RAM. But, if possible, it is better to have more memory, of course.

Egor Merkushev, 2012-07-13
@egormerkushev

I have a Mac mini 2011 - 2-4 gigabytes is not enough, everything is terribly stupid. At eight - even less. Many applications are constantly running: Xcode, iPhone Simulator, Safari (flash for music), iTunes, Photoshop, Skype, Mail, Dropbox and so on ... All this eats up a huge amount of memory.
Although my brakes, it sometimes seems to me, have a different name - HDD.

Nikolai Turnaviotov, 2012-07-13
@foxmuldercp

I would also look at replacing hdd --> ssd or hdd --> hdd + ssd - even on Windows with 2 gigabytes of memory and a virtual machine of one gigabyte, the speed of work has become many times higher
with xcode and other IDEs, this will also be positive

Dmitry, 2012-07-13
@DedalX

“I’m going to use for XCode, a couple of virtual machines, and then the standard set ...” - if you work for a long time (10-12 hours without reboots), then it’s not enough. Moreover, the main reason why XCode is not enough (it devours RAM like an elephant, and do not rush to clean it up). I speak as the owner of the latest MBA with 4 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD. For me, on an MBP with 8 GB of RAM, it’s not very enough for comfortable work (although there is no SSD), but on an iMAC with 12 GB of RAM, memory is just right (but there is also no SSD). The SSD really saves the day, but there's still not enough memory in the Air.

Anatoly, 2012-07-13
@taliban

Maybe macbooks have different principles of operation, and a more demanding system, but I have a laptop on Windows, and it costs 4 gigabytes of memory. I worked in a virtual machine for a year (the work is specific and I needed a virtual machine), and so, provided the sandy bridge processor (and they support virtualization and have good performance), the work is quite comfortable and it was for work that I had no desire to add more.

phasma, 2012-07-14
@phasma

Better than 8 GB. Lately Chrome has started leaking even more. Yesterday, one of the processes that was responsible for the Facebook tab gobbled up 915MB. Eclipse, Mail.App also eat a lot. I don't remember how much I used XCode, but I don't use it now. VirtualBox ran on 4GB in parallel with Eclipse and Chrome, but at the same time it starts to actively swap.

Oleg Dyachenko, 2014-06-10
@OLDJman

I will describe my experience.
I've been using Mac for a year and a half.
Before that, I had never sat on them, so at first everything was only in Windows. At first everything was fine. Six months later, almost all programs switched to a poppy, I found analogues, something became more convenient on a poppy, after a year and a half there are almost no programs that I run in Windows, but nevertheless, there is always Windows in parallel.
Bottom line: in the first six months, everything was tolerable, the brakes were but barely noticeable. Then it got a little worse, as loading the laptop became more serious. As a result, now I really lack 1-2 gigabytes of RAM to my 4.
So don't be sorry, at one time I screwed up, and the memory is soldered, there's no way to fix it, take at least 8. Although, if possible, take 16 =). You can get used to everything else, but you can use the poppy's capabilities to the maximum, and this greatly limits 4 gigabytes of memory when 1 gigabyte is given to Windows =(