[X4U] RAM lessons even the stubborn can learn

[David Ledger]

>From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
>it makes me wonder, what is it about modern Mac's that they're so
>blasted touchy when it comes to RAM.  I've got high-end (Sparc and
>Alpha) workstations that aren't this touchy!  I've had my one DEC
>Alpha running for well over 400 days straight with out of spec RAM in
>it.

Don't most high-end machines have at least single-bit 
error-correcting memory?  I would expect the DEC Alpha to. I'm pretty 
sure Sparc boxes do, but I don't know about the x86 based Sun boxes.

I think the problem is that we're using the same broad type of memory 
that PCs use, and that's a high-turnover lower base-spec market. The 
base spec for memory for high-end is better, so all makes work. Any 
that didn't would go under.

The Mac just uses memory more aggressively than PCs. We sometimes 
have to wait a second or two while processes page if we're short of 
memory. On a PC that can take tens of seconds. Ok, thats the inferior 
memory management software, but a side effect is that it hits the 
memory less hard.

David


-- 
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
Chair of HPUX SysAdmin SIG of hpUG technical user group (www.hpug.org.uk)
david.ledger at ivdcs.co.uk
www.ivdcs.co.uk