[G5] Buying RAM

[Philip J Robar]

On Jun 12, 2005, at 7:18 AM, Allan Hise wrote:

> I have a new Power Mac G5 with 1 GB RAM and I am seeing an incredibly
> large number of pageins, so it looks like I need more RAM.

No, no, no, no. :-) Pageins are just normal behavior for an OS that  
uses demand paging. In simple terms operating systems that use  
virtual memory only load parts of a program and data into memory as  
they are needed. If you don't use some part of an application or data  
file it never gets loaded. (Although the OS may do anticipatory  
loading if you have sufficient free memory.)

What you need to look for are excessive pageouts, which indicate that  
the operating system is having to move data from memory back to disk  
to make room for new data.

"Do I Need More Memory?" is a free and easy to use program that helps  
you decide if you need more memory.

http://www.hillmanminx.net/dinmm/


Phil