Memory issues

Groinshot

Hi all, have a MBP with 8GB ram (mid 2011 version) and in the last few weeks have been having performance issues with it.
There is always between 20 and 30MB free memory, with most of the memory being allocated to inactive. This is fine, but my problem is that even though there's 4.5GB+ inactive memory, I'm getting an awful lot of page in/outs... Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong?

Sad Professor

OS X's memory management is pretty advanced. You don't need to worry about it. The system will reassign inactive memory to new processes as is needed. Page ins are normal and mean the system is giving memory to an app. Page outs are when something is in VM and has to be read back into RAM. A certain number of page outs are perfectly normal, especially if your system has been running for a while.

What perfomance issues are you having?

conor.hogan.2

OSX allocates a lot of memory to inactive and then when you need more ram it will cause page outs which is really annoying and should not happen in theory.

Sad Professor

Inactive memory is a good thing. It lets you resume previous tasks faster than if they had to be loaded back into memory again. The system automatically shifts things in and out of virtual memory as needed.

I know when people upgrade their RAM they like to admire the free memory stat, but free memory isn't really a good thing as it means the system isn't making full use of available RAM.

conor.hogan.2

Inactive memory is fine, not deallocating it well enough is not as it leads to high page outs and a slower system and that is not fine.

The OP has problems with the high page outs because the inactive memory is not being used as the OS should be using it.

Sad Professor

How do you know it's not reallocating it? Inactive memory is basically free memory. When a new app needs it the system assigns it as if it were free.

Despite what some people say, page outs are not a bad thing. The system is always swapping things in and out virtual memory regardless of how much free or inactive memory is available. However, a lot of page outs in a close timeframe may suggest you need more RAM.

conor.hogan.2

Because a fair few times my page outs have been very very high and this happens when I run out of free memory. It does de-allocate it or my page outs would be a lot lot higher but it does not allocate enough/fast enough.

Page outs are not bad but having a lot of them compared to page-ins is bad which happens to me the odd time even with 8GB and possibly is happening to the OP.

Groinshot

Hey. I'm getting extremely sluggish performance on even the most menial tasks. most of my work is xCode and Parallels running VS2010, but recently, running safari, or alfred(spotlight addon) has been unresponsive, even after closing down all other tabs. I restarted yesterday afternoon around 3PM, and Safari is now unusable. I've closed everything, my inactive memory is 5.2GB, free is 13MB, and I'm getting a beach ball on FB/stackoverflow/reddit.
I've never had a problem before last week, and I haven't changed any settings that I'm aware of..

Sad Professor

Well, after closing everything you've loads of memory free or inactive, so it's not necesarily a memory problem. As I said above, inactive memory is free memory. I suspect the problem lies somewhere else.

Verify the hard disk using Disk Utility to rule out a hard disk issue. Is the machine slow to boot up?

You should also open Activity Monitor when it's sluggish like that see what's using the CPU.

As for Safari, you sometimes need to clear out the cache, history, etc.

Groinshot

Sad Professor wrote: »

Well, after closing everything you've loads of memory free or inactive, so it's not necesarily a memory problem. As I said above, inactive memory is free memory. I suspect the problem lies somewhere else.

Verify the hard disk using Disk Utility to rule out a hard disk issue. Is the machine slow to boot up?

You should also open Activity Monitor when it's sluggish like that see what's using the CPU.

As for Safari, you sometimes need to clear out the cache, history, etc.

Disk utility says HD is fine. Boots up at a grand speed.
CPU usage is 13% at the minute, and I'm getting a beachball on safari.
Biggest memory culprits are: Safari Web Content, mds, and Finder(That was unexpected)
Activity monitor is the highest reported CPU usage...

Sad Professor

Well, Safari is a problematic application at the best of times. I experience frequent lockups and beach-balls with it and have done so for as long as its been around. Try clearing the cache, browsing history, cookies, etc (might take a while), then restart it and see if there's any improvement. You need to do this regularly to keep it running smoothly.

As far as memory usage goes, any web browser will use a lot of memory. Safari also suffered from memory leaks in the past and probably still does. But as I said before, I wouldn't worry too much about the memory. If I was experiencing performance issues it would be the CPU and the hard drive I'd be worried about. RAM doesn't have that much of an effect on speed.

Is it mostly with Safari that you experiencing these performance issues?

And post some of your stats (page outs, memory usage, etc) and we can tell you if they are unusual.

Groinshot

Sad Professor wrote: »

Is it mostly with Safari that you experiencing these performance issues?

And post some of your stats (page outs, memory usage, etc) and we can tell you if they are unusual.

I just rebooted so all is running fine now for the time being.
I'll post my stats when it's been running for a couple of hours.

Also, it's hard to tell whether it's mostly with safari, as I always have safari running. It's not just safari that's slow though, for instance if iTunes is running and it starts to act up I notice it stuttering, or if I'm swapping windows in xCode, it's delayed and not as fluid as it normally would be. It could well be a safari problem though, because I can't remember the last time I've not had safari running for an extended period.
I keep my cache/history etc relatively clean anyway, cleared it out on friday.

Sad Professor

It would be very unusual for Safari to slow the whole system down.

Re: this slow performance in certain apps, does it happen after being away from the app for a while? And does it ease off after a few minutes?

Also, do you run Parallels a lot?

Groinshot

Sad Professor wrote: »

It would be very unusual for Safari to slow the whole system down.

Re: this slow performance in certain apps, does it happen after being away from the app for a while? And does it ease off after a few minutes?

Also, do you run Parallels a lot?

I run parallels quite a lot, but I don't leave it running in the background. I get slowdowns with or without parallels running.
I get the slowdowns when they're in use, ie
iTunes: Stuttering when listening to music,
xCode: Working on a project, change source file, and there's a delay in response,
Visual Studio(parallels): Even typing slows down here sometimes.

conor.hogan.2

Unless this is happening when your free memory runs out then you are have deeper problems.

I notice osx does not free up enough inactive memory when you use up all of your free memory and it starts paging out which will slow down the system a bit.

As for Safari its memory problems are so bad I have an applescript to restart it that I run often.

Groinshot

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Unless this is happening when your free memory runs out then you are have deeper problems.

Pulled out a 4GB chip, it's running fine... hrmm...(other than parallels which has 3GB dedicated to it, but that's not surprising.)