I have now upgraded my late 2009 iMac to 12 Gbytes. This makes some things faster (a bit), and most things rather less clunky. I can now also be doing more than one thing at a time without too much bother.
For example, I am currently analysing some video in another window using Adobe Premiere Elements (APE) as I type this into the input box in Firefox. Previously the machine, and also myself was struggling, with the machine only having 4 Gbytes of main memory. It was possible to edit video with APE before, but only just, and it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. Now, out of devilment I'm also running iTunes, listening to Mozart's piano concerto 1 with Martin Galling, Günter Wich & Stuttgarter Solisten, and I have also loaded up other browsers, Safari, Opera, Chrome, and also opened up Word, which is doing an update.
The Memory Monitor app which is a useful tool is still showing 30-3x% of the total memory free, though this can be knocked up to 50% by hitting the Optimize button in Memory Monitor.
The whole thing does feel much more responsive, though in terms of raw speed on the most critical tasks it is not particularly faster than before. Thus the background video tasks don't seem much faster, but at least they can be put into the background while I get on with other things. Previously it was almost as much as I could do to run the video tasks, and I had to wait until they'd completed before running anything else.
For the moment the update to 12 Gbyte will suffice. I bought the memory from Crucial for a fraction more than £40 - and I checked the memory using the Crucial Scanner. I also had several chat sessions with Crucial agents to confirm what to get. Even better, I did the upgrade today, and I only ordered the memory yesterday. I did not choose to have express delivery for an additional charge, but even so the memory has arrived within 24 hours of ordering it. Excellent! I wasn't expecting to get to this state until early next week. Well done Crucial! http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en?gclid=C...160227151715:s
Video to show how to do the upgrade from OWC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4UqhXIcEQ4
This particular machine will upgrade to 16 Gbytes, so if I feel it needs a bit more memory to free it up further, then I shall consider another £40 rather well spent.
I did risk things slightly - after all in the UK we do live in a damp climate. I watched a video about the upgrade - which does have the inevitable health warning about static electricity. I rolled the rug in our hall back a bit. Then I put a damp towel down on the tiled floor next to the radiator, and then put silver foil on top of that. I also grabbed hold of the radiator while I handled the modules, and I followed the instructions in the video. As I half feared my first attempt seemed to require considerable force to put the new modules in, so instead I ejected the old ones, and then put the new ones into the vacated slots. This gave an upgrade to 8 Gbytes, which I then checked out. After a short period of testing I decided to try to put the original 2 Gbyte modules back into the other empty slots. This was still a bit of a brute force operation. I don't do this every day, so I just went for brute force. If I were doing this a lot, I'd probably have squirted contact cleaner on to the contacts, which would most likely have made things easier, but it's done now, and seems OK.
I do actually have a conducting strap, which normally I attach to the radiator for operations similar to this, but as is the way of things that has now submerged into the general mire - hence my slightly riskier procedure today.
I do have a slightly earlier machine to upgrade - but that only has 2 slots. The success of this one will probably encourage me to do that one soon. If I'm feeling ultra mean I may only put one 4 Gbyte module into that, to take it to 6Gbytes total. In theory that might not be optimum, as there is a kind of received wisdom that the modules should be balanced pairs in each bank, but it does look as though some tests on other machines haven't shown any major differences/difficulties. OTOH - even at £40+ it's not a big deal to do that upgrade, though I will then have spare 2 Gbyte modules to discard or give away.
For anyone with an iMac who might be experiencing memory issues (slow, clunky feel ...) I thoroughly recommend this kind of upgrade. It is quite easy to test using the Memory Monitor app - which works with OS X versions 8 up to 11 as far as I can tell. That app does give a different view in 10.8 as that doesn't have the fancier memory management system which has been developed and used in Mavericks through to El Capitan.
Anyone who has critical cpu bound tasks may not get so much benefit, and then the only real solution is to go for a faster machine, but most of us round here might find that a memory upgrade is a good thing to try first.
For example, I am currently analysing some video in another window using Adobe Premiere Elements (APE) as I type this into the input box in Firefox. Previously the machine, and also myself was struggling, with the machine only having 4 Gbytes of main memory. It was possible to edit video with APE before, but only just, and it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. Now, out of devilment I'm also running iTunes, listening to Mozart's piano concerto 1 with Martin Galling, Günter Wich & Stuttgarter Solisten, and I have also loaded up other browsers, Safari, Opera, Chrome, and also opened up Word, which is doing an update.
The Memory Monitor app which is a useful tool is still showing 30-3x% of the total memory free, though this can be knocked up to 50% by hitting the Optimize button in Memory Monitor.
The whole thing does feel much more responsive, though in terms of raw speed on the most critical tasks it is not particularly faster than before. Thus the background video tasks don't seem much faster, but at least they can be put into the background while I get on with other things. Previously it was almost as much as I could do to run the video tasks, and I had to wait until they'd completed before running anything else.
For the moment the update to 12 Gbyte will suffice. I bought the memory from Crucial for a fraction more than £40 - and I checked the memory using the Crucial Scanner. I also had several chat sessions with Crucial agents to confirm what to get. Even better, I did the upgrade today, and I only ordered the memory yesterday. I did not choose to have express delivery for an additional charge, but even so the memory has arrived within 24 hours of ordering it. Excellent! I wasn't expecting to get to this state until early next week. Well done Crucial! http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en?gclid=C...160227151715:s
Video to show how to do the upgrade from OWC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4UqhXIcEQ4
This particular machine will upgrade to 16 Gbytes, so if I feel it needs a bit more memory to free it up further, then I shall consider another £40 rather well spent.
I did risk things slightly - after all in the UK we do live in a damp climate. I watched a video about the upgrade - which does have the inevitable health warning about static electricity. I rolled the rug in our hall back a bit. Then I put a damp towel down on the tiled floor next to the radiator, and then put silver foil on top of that. I also grabbed hold of the radiator while I handled the modules, and I followed the instructions in the video. As I half feared my first attempt seemed to require considerable force to put the new modules in, so instead I ejected the old ones, and then put the new ones into the vacated slots. This gave an upgrade to 8 Gbytes, which I then checked out. After a short period of testing I decided to try to put the original 2 Gbyte modules back into the other empty slots. This was still a bit of a brute force operation. I don't do this every day, so I just went for brute force. If I were doing this a lot, I'd probably have squirted contact cleaner on to the contacts, which would most likely have made things easier, but it's done now, and seems OK.
I do actually have a conducting strap, which normally I attach to the radiator for operations similar to this, but as is the way of things that has now submerged into the general mire - hence my slightly riskier procedure today.
I do have a slightly earlier machine to upgrade - but that only has 2 slots. The success of this one will probably encourage me to do that one soon. If I'm feeling ultra mean I may only put one 4 Gbyte module into that, to take it to 6Gbytes total. In theory that might not be optimum, as there is a kind of received wisdom that the modules should be balanced pairs in each bank, but it does look as though some tests on other machines haven't shown any major differences/difficulties. OTOH - even at £40+ it's not a big deal to do that upgrade, though I will then have spare 2 Gbyte modules to discard or give away.
For anyone with an iMac who might be experiencing memory issues (slow, clunky feel ...) I thoroughly recommend this kind of upgrade. It is quite easy to test using the Memory Monitor app - which works with OS X versions 8 up to 11 as far as I can tell. That app does give a different view in 10.8 as that doesn't have the fancier memory management system which has been developed and used in Mavericks through to El Capitan.
Anyone who has critical cpu bound tasks may not get so much benefit, and then the only real solution is to go for a faster machine, but most of us round here might find that a memory upgrade is a good thing to try first.
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