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mabaker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 19, 2008
1,209
566
Wondering how is the 2GB of RAM experience for those of us still sticking to older computers that are not upgradable but very much reliable (MBA 2010). Any lag at all?
 

ufkdo

macrumors 6502
Oct 30, 2010
344
3
Turkey
I am wondering this as well. Mavericks works great on my 2010 Macbook Air (although it lags time to time, it is not a very big issue), and I wonder how Yosemite is working. Any beta testers out there?
 

ct2k7

macrumors G3
Aug 29, 2008
8,362
3,435
London
I'm going to bite the bullet and do it today.

but note that on my 2013 MBPr with 16GB RAM, I'm currently using about 9GB RAM with only 5 apps open:

Safari (two tabs)
Mail
Messages
Textual
Mail
iTunes.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,547
43,500
I'm going to bite the bullet and do it today.
...
I'm currently using about 9GB RAM with only 5 apps open:
Helpful, but not quite what the OP was looking for - he's wondering about MBAs with 2GB of ram, not 16.
 

ct2k7

macrumors G3
Aug 29, 2008
8,362
3,435
London
Helpful, but not quite what the OP was looking for - he's wondering about MBAs with 2GB of ram, not 16.

Hence why I said I was going to bite the bullet and install it on my MBA today. (ok, maybe I should have said that specifically).
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,547
43,500
Yeah, you kind of omitted MBA and when right into the rMBP with 16gb ;)
 

Dave245

macrumors G3
Sep 15, 2013
9,763
8,007
Do you think that OSX Yosemite will work ok on a 2011 MBP? i have a 2.2Ghz i7 with 8GB Ram. I'm currently running OSX Mavericks which is working fine.

I know this isn't to do with the Macbook Air but i didn't think it was worth starting a new thread for. Mods please feel free to put in another place if you wish :)
 

yeldarbnamdlog

macrumors member
Jun 3, 2014
52
0
Do you think that OSX Yosemite will work ok on a 2011 MBP? i have a 2.2Ghz i7 with 8GB Ram. I'm currently running OSX Mavericks which is working fine.

I know this isn't to do with the Macbook Air but i didn't think it was worth starting a new thread for. Mods please feel free to put in another place if you wish :)

I'm just going to copy/paste my response from another thread to give you an idea of what you're looking at, if you choose to install DP1, on a 2011 MBP...

Having been using DP1 for several hours now, switching apps back and forth, opening many tabs in finder and safari, playing high def movies in VLC, and general cocking about with Yosemite, my activity monitor says I'm using 10.86GB of 16.00GB, with 0 bytes of Swap Used...So, all in all, DP1 is a fair bit more of a memory hog than Mavericks 10.9.3...Not a huge issue if you have a large amount of RAM, but when you only have, say, 4GB RAM, having it use an extra 1.25 -> 1.5GB can have a substantial impact!

As for CPU, it's no better or worse than Mavericks 10.9.3, and this is all based on an Early-2011 MacBook Pro 15-inch.

Bottom line: Have a look in Activity Monitor, how much RAM is being used, then add 1.25GB -> 1.5GB to that, and that will give you an indication of what to expect.
 

Dave245

macrumors G3
Sep 15, 2013
9,763
8,007
I'm just going to copy/paste my response from another thread to give you an idea of what you're looking at, if you choose to install DP1, on a 2011 MBP...



Bottom line: Have a look in Activity Monitor, how much RAM is being used, then add 1.25GB -> 1.5GB to that, and that will give you an indication of what to expect.

Ok thank you, i might install on my iMac instead the 2013 should be able to handle it with 16GB Ram. I have signed up to the Bata for this summer so i might just try on my Macbook 2011 Pro and if it doesn't work restore from a back up that i use on time machine.

Thinking about it, this might actually be the push i need to update, to either a Macbook Air 13" or a Macbook Pro retina display.
 
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bibi2205

macrumors member
Apr 25, 2010
70
0
I don't have a MBA but I installed it on my 2009 Macbook with 4GB Ram and it's currently using 3,74GB. Running pretty solid so far so I might install it on my rMBP (8GB) and Mac Pro (12GB) soon.
 

SuperRob

macrumors 6502
Mar 14, 2011
253
4
Remember, all of Apple's modern OSes will basically use all the RAM available, filling it with data it thinks you might use in advance, in order to speed up performance. Looking at your RAM usage on any machine isn't telling the entire story, because if the system is doing what it's supposed to do, every machine will be using close to all of it's RAM, irrespective of how much RAM is in the machine.

That said, 2GB is barely adequate for Mavericks. Given that memory optimization is one of the last things to happen for an OS release, I'd imagine that 2GB won't be enough for the beta ... but given that it's still on Apple's list of supported hardware, it should run (though possibly slow) on final release.
 

SmOgER

macrumors 6502a
Jun 2, 2014
805
89
It's on the lower side, but given the fact that you have SSD (swapping by far won't be as painful), I say you'll be fine with 2GB without using parallels and similiar ram hungry apps.

It wasn't that far ago when people were buying WIN7 machines with 2GB RAM, it was fine for anything but gaming and hardcore stuff. Ram usage on OS X 10.10 for critical stuff shouldn't be much higher (read the post above mine).
 
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motorazr

macrumors 6502
For what it's worth - I'm on a 2011 Air with 4gb. I've never really had an issue with Ram on the Air (since the SSD is so fast when used in swap...) -- but here's my activity monitor showing little available ram. One safari tab, a few chat streams, and activity monitor open.

I've noticed some lagging on and off, but it's DP1 . . . so I'm attributing all of that to optimizations.

I think you'll probably be pushing it.. but give it a shot and report back!

EDIT

..screen shot. Right.
 

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SmOgER

macrumors 6502a
Jun 2, 2014
805
89
but here's my activity monitor showing little available ram. One safari tab, a few chat streams, and activity monitor open.


These statements just keep popping up like the mushrooms after the rain :eek:

Like stated before, the OS X is utilizing all the RAM deliberately. It will free up the needed amount as soon as random app or task will request it.
 
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