Typical Memory Usage

[kjkim323]

Hey all,

I was just wondering how much memory should be guzzled during average use of Mac OS and apps (Mail, Firefox, iTunes...)?

My current readings from iStatPro are:
Wired: 251mb
Active: 432mb
Inactive: 302mb
Free: 35mb

Are these readings normal? And what do each of those categories mean?

Thank you for your help.

[kjkim323]

Forgot to mention my specs:

Macbook
2.16ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
1gb RAM
120gb hdd

Mac OS X 10.4.10

Purchased July 2007

[Interstellar]

This is iStats reference page -

http://islayer.com/support/?p=11 (I personally like my 'Inactive Memory' to be at least half of my total RAM, which in my case is 1GB)

Do you feel it being sluggish?

[kjkim323]

I've been having a problem with my Macbook freezing frequently... I thought it was a harddrive problem, but it happens so irregularly I don't think that that is it...

Is it okay to have only like 30-ish Free memory?

[bryphotoguy]

It seems a little high. If your computer ran out of RAM, it would turn your HD into scratch disk and use it as RAM. This would keep your computer running but it'd slow down. There is something that would pop up saying you're running out of memory and you need to close things before your computer started using scratch disk.
Secondly, you have plenty of free memory which isn't used.
If you're having freezing issues, record them (date, time, what you were doing.) Once you have half a dozen or more, take it to the Apple store and maybe they can sort it out.
-Peace