Trying to decide if 24GB for M3 MBA is enough

[20BadSectors]

Hi everyone,

I've decided to give a new M3 MacBook Air a shot as my general work computer (mostly the usual browsing/email/chat/Office apps stuff plus a lot of small to medium sized projects in Xcode, Visual Studio Code, Photoshop, Illustrator, and occasionally Final Cut Pro) but am struggling to know how much RAM to get in order to comfortably operate 2-3 of these apps at a time (probably not with Final Cut. )

There used to be a time where I would have been quite comfortable going with 24GB of memory (and that was WITH a VM running in the background on occasion) but now I'm not so sure. My current machine has 64GB of RAM which I never come close to using but according to Activity Monitor I tend to hover in the 20-23GB of "memory used" (if that is to be believed).

My questions / request:

1. Is anyone else using a MacBook Air with similar tools above? Any concerns with 24GB of RAM in this day and age?
2. If you are running 24GB of RAM today, would you be willing to share what your memory usage pane looks like on activity monitor, running Sonoma? I've attached my current (only running e-mail, Safari, Notes, and Activity Monitor at the moment!?)

Thank you!

 

[Username-already-in-use]

24GB RAM is perfectly fine for developing on a Mac. I have a work-MBP M2 Pro with 16GB RAM and a personal MBP with M2 Max 32GB RAM.

We have some M1 and M2 Mac Minis with 8GB RAM at work that we run build pipelines on and they build a very large Xcode project in 5 minutes (which is faster than the cloud agent we were using - 20 minutes build time). However those Minis do not run any other applications.

I think an Apple Silicon MacBook Air with at least 16GB RAM is usable for developing on. My work laptop has yet to fire up the fans.

24GB RAM should be fine if you are planning to have Xcode plus some other apps open.

 

[Chuckeee]

I don’t think RAM is the issue you should be concerned about. 24 GB should be fine. I would be more concerned that your processing load looks fairly heavy and you really probably need a machine with a fan. I don’t know what your exact processing mix is but I suspect you can easily run into throttling issues.

 

[Isamilis]

Hi everyone,

I've decided to give a new M3 MacBook Air a shot as my general work computer (mostly the usual browsing/email/chat/Office apps stuff plus a lot of small to medium sized projects in Xcode, Visual Studio Code, Photoshop, Illustrator, and occasionally Final Cut Pro) but am struggling to know how much RAM to get in order to comfortably operate 2-3 of these apps at a time (probably not with Final Cut. )

There used to be a time where I would have been quite comfortable going with 24GB of memory (and that was WITH a VM running in the background on occasion) but now I'm not so sure. My current machine has 64GB of RAM which I never come close to using but according to Activity Monitor I tend to hover in the 20-23GB of "memory used" (if that is to be believed).

My questions / request:

1. Is anyone else using a MacBook Air with similar tools above? Any concerns with 24GB of RAM in this day and age?
2. If you are running 24GB of RAM today, would you be willing to share what your memory usage pane looks like on activity monitor, running Sonoma? I've attached my current (only running e-mail, Safari, Notes, and Activity Monitor at the moment!?)

Thank you!

If you run VM then it depends how big is VM’s ram, and how often do you use it. VM is the real RAM eater.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

After you configure that MBair for that kind of load, the price should be compared to "deals" for MBpros. You can probably find a good MBpro with a deal to let it win this (decision) contest.

If my regular RAM usage on an existing Mac is 24GB-32GB, I do not buy 24GB and expect it to work fine. It WILL work, but you'll probably be shifting a load at times onto SWAP (SSD) that is currently NOT SWAPPED because you have the added RAM.

People will argue that so much SWAPing is no big deal but I question that based upon so much demand on Apple Fusion drives. People argued how those would be fine too back when Apple was pushing them. Where are those people now?

I realize you may want the MBair for many reasons... but your needs seem to much favor a more loaded MBpro... or maybe split this purchase into TWO Macs: perhaps a Mac Studio for the "heavy lifting" chores and then a less loaded MBair for "on the road" tasks?

 

[ignatius345]

People will argue that so much SWAPing is no big deal but I question that based upon so much demand on Apple Fusion drives. People argued how those would be fine too back when Apple was pushing them. Where are those people now?

What's your point here? That swapping out RAM to the SSD is going to kill it prematurely? Let's see some hard data to back that up.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Yes, that is my speculation. For “evidence," we have many years of examples of too many SSD writes wearing out SSDs. There is a finite number of writes for any of them and then they are dead. There is no conflicting evidence that proves the contrary.

I don’t think that can be arguable… unless someone wants to claim that Apple SSD “is different” and thus will outlast life of device (which tends to be the one slung every time this topic comes up).

Of course, the same was slung when people questioned the life of the Apple SSD portion of Fusion drives back when that was a new thing… and now you find lots of cases of that failing, bringing down those Macs. Why are those drives failing? Too many SSD writes.

The monumental difference between Fusion failures and this potential is that owners of the former can replace the Fusion Drive at relatively little cost and keep using that Mac. With Silicon, when the SSD fails, your entire Mac must be replaced.

The absolute evidence proving or disproving this speculation starts showing up in another year or three… when those first Silicon Macs purchased with too little RAM and thus leaning heavily on SWAP start having SSD failures or not. None of us can know for sure until then. Some of us will either learn a hard lesson (again) or that these SSDs are-in fact- robust enough to sub in for computer RAM for up to life of device… unlike Fusion SSDs.

But I bet them Fusion drive Mac buyers learned a lesson about leaning on heavy writes to SSD… even if assured by the “faithful” that it won’t be an issue back in those days.

The question for today’s buyers- like OP- is do you want to gamble on this over a few hundred dollars vs. risking the cost of the whole Mac… or let others be the guinea pigs on this topic? If there’s actually no issue here, the added RAM will simply yield faster R/W for all of the years of use. And if this speculation manifests, your Mac will likely outlast those who chose too little RAM for their Mac.

TBD in concrete terms the next few years… but to me, Fusion paints a clear picture that should not be overlooked now. Caveat emptor!

If I’m OP who already knows for certain that he’s regularly using > 24GB of RAM, I only consider a Mac with > 24GB of RAM. Even a maxed MBair isn’t a sufficient fit for OPs typical use… unless he wants to hope that this SSD won’t be like Fusion SSD before he might want to replace this new Mac purchase… because NO “just replace the dying drive" cheap solution exists with Silicon: you have to buy an entirely new Mac when any part fails.