Page In / Page Out

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Page In / Page Out - UPDATE

About a year ago I asked on here about page in & page outs on activity monitor, and was told that if I have page outs then I needed more ram. So I bought 8gb upgrade kit for my stock '09 17" MBP and things didn't seem that much faster.

I was still getting some page outs so recently I decided to upgrade the HHD to a Crucial 256GB V4 SSD. Now its lightening fast with apps like CS6 & Word '11 opening in one bounce and really fast startup times .... but I still get some page outs in activity monitor !!

The page out number is usually somewhere between 5% - 15% of the page in number.

Should I really be worried about it ??

Cheers

J
 

chscag

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Should I really be worried about it ??

No. Paging is normal, even for machines that have an excess of memory. It all depends on what the "real" memory is being used for at the time when the system implements the page ins and outs.
 

vansmith

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You shouldn't be paging out if you have available memory. If you're still paging out, you're using up more RAM than is available. Adding more RAM may help to alleviate the problem but it doesn't necessarily solve it. For example, I used to have 4GB of RAM and at any given moment, I'd be using no more than 2GB. I upgraded to 8GB and now I use more doing similar tasks (right now, I'm hovering around 3GB used).

You need to pay attention to what is using the memory. I've never used CS6 but I imagine that it uses quite a bit of memory. Also watch for applications that leak memory (apps that keep consuming and never stop).
 

Raz0rEdge

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Here is a screenshot of my Activity Monitor output. I have an iMac with 12GB of memory and this machine has been running for 4 days now (the 10.8.1 update made me restart)..

As you can see I have a number of Page ins, zero page outs and most importantly 0 bytes of Swap used. The Page outs and Swap used are an indication of how well the available memory is being used.

In my case, all applications that I use have been able to "page in" their needed information and have it be available in RAM and the OS hasn't felt a need to "page out" anything sitting in RAM because some new application asked for something that isn't readily available.

So the 12GB I have is serving my application use perfectly.

Post a screenshot of your Activity Monitor and we can further advise..

Screen Shot 2012-08-27 at 8.21.24 PM.png
 
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Jbob
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Typical ..... I just restarted my Mac after updating Office hahaha

So this is with it running for about 20min. I'll leave it running for a few days and post a new screen shot and compare.

Screen Shot 2012-08-28 at 01.31.48.jpg
 

Raz0rEdge

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Hmm, now it's curious that you have any amount of Swap used when you have over 5.25GB of memory free and the Used only got up to 2.74GB..that is very curious and confusing indeed..

With 8GB of memory, unless you started loading a TON of applications you shouldn't see any Swap usage at all.
 

pigoo3

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About a year ago I asked on here about page in & page outs on activity monitor, and was told that if I have page outs then I needed more ram. So I bought 8gb upgrade kit for my stock '09 17" MBP and things didn't seem that much faster.

More ram helps with page-outs. 2gig is better than 1 gig...4gig is better than 2 gig...and 8gig is better than 4gig. The way more ram helps (in regards to page-outs) is...the more ram you have...the longer it takes for the page-outs number to go from "0"...to a number greater than 0.

The key to page-outs (for me)...is when things start to slow down (and I start getting "Beach-Balls")...is simply to reboot the computer. Then page-outs will be back to zero. The more ram you have...the longer it takes for the page-outs number to get to a point where things slow down.

So with 1 gig of ram...someone may have to reboot the computer every 1-2 days. With 8gig of ram...a person may not have to reboot for 1-2 weeks. Of course all of this is dependent on the individual users usage patterns. But a similar relationship will still exist (MUCH fewer rebooting with 8gig vs. 1gig).:)

I was still getting some page outs so recently I decided to upgrade the HHD to a Crucial 256GB V4 SSD. Now its lightening fast with apps like CS6 & Word '11 opening in one bounce and really fast startup times .... but I still get some page outs in activity monitor !!

Installing a different storage device (traditional HD or SSD) will not have an effect on page-outs...but as you've experienced...an SSD will greatly speed up many things that previously relied on the slower traditional HD.

Should I really be worried about it ??

Only if things seem to be slowing down...or you start seeing a lot of "Beach-Balls".

HTH,

- Nick
 

pigoo3

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Typical ..... I just restarted my Mac after updating Office hahaha

So this is with it running for about 20min. I'll leave it running for a few days and post a new screen shot and compare.

What size SSD did you install...and how full is it (how many gigs free)?

- Nick
 
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I just opened 48 16bit tiff files in Photoshop so I could resize them .... something I do on a regular basis, and this is the results from the activity monitor !!

It was saying 7.85gb in the "used" section while PS was open but I cr***ed myself and shut it down just as i remember to take a screen shot.

Screen Shot 2012-08-29 at 00.13.03.jpg
 

vansmith

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I've got no idea how big those TIFF files were but if you're opening 48 fairly large ones in an app that already uses a lot of memory, yes, you'll be using quite a bit. If you did indeed jump up to 7.85GB used, it is very possible that you had to star paging since you were dangerously close to running out of "real" memory.
 
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After a few hours editing images with Photoshop

Screen Shot 2012-08-30 at 23.56.45.jpg
 

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