MacBook Air Late 2015

[mraamohamed]

I have acquired a late 2015 MacBook Air 4/128 I read that to upgrade the memory had to be done from the go, can not be done now is that true can anyone shed some light if this is true or not. I would love to go to 8/256 if possible.

Thanks
Abdulah

 

[Raz0rEdge]

There is no Late 2015 MBA, only an early 2015 MBA and the memory cannot be upgraded after the fact. However, the SSD can be upgraded following these instructions for the 2015 13" MBA or 2015 11" MBA, you don't say which version you have specifically.

 

[mraamohamed]

There is no Late 2015 MBA, only an early 2015 MBA and the memory cannot be upgraded after the fact. However, the SSD can be upgraded following these instructions for the 2015 13" MBA or 2015 11" MBA, you don't say which version you have specifically.

Sorry I have the 11" version. Thanks for the help in this matter.

Abdulah

 

[krs]

@mraamohamed - Why do you think you need to upgrade the memory?
I would think with an SSD, memory swap RAM to SSD and back would be very quick and not slow things down.
How full is your SSD?

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[mraamohamed]

@mraamohamed - Why do you think you need to upgrade the memory?
I would think with an SSD, memory swap RAM to SSD and back would be very quick and not slow things down.
How full is your SSD?

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Maybe I am still in the PC world mentality where the more ram the better, I am not sure how the memory swap works with SSD drives.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Maybe I am still in the PC world mentality where the more ram the better, I am not sure how the memory swap works with SSD drives.

Well it's time to start thinking the Mac way. Windows is an inefficient OS and uses RAM similarly. Linux and Unix based OS' do a much better job and for MOST cases, will do a much better job with less RAM than Windows.

Now, there are definitely workflows (think image, video editing, 3D graphics or heavy development) where having more than 4GB of RAM is useful. But if that was your workflow, then the MBA is the wrong machine for it. The MBA is one step above an iPad from a performance perspective so it's best suited for browsing the web, writing documents, listening to music and things as such.

You swapping your SSD out is only giving you more storage, not more speed which you already have with the current SSD.

If you think storage is going to be an issue, you should consider grabbing a larger (say 1TB) external SSD drive and leave the internal drive only for the OS and applications.

 

[krs]

Maybe I am still in the PC world mentality where the more ram the better, I am not sure how the memory swap works with SSD drives.

Adding to what Ashwin posted.
On your Ma you can go to Utilities > Activity Monitor, the Memory tab and check how much memory swap has actually been done while you were using your Mac.
What I was getting at with RAM swap with an SSD is that it is much faster than if you had a 'spinner' internal drive and did RAM swap with it.

 

[mraamohamed]

Well it's time to start thinking the Mac way. Windows is an inefficient OS and uses RAM similarly. Linux and Unix based OS' do a much better job and for MOST cases, will do a much better job with less RAM than Windows.

Now, there are definitely workflows (think image, video editing, 3D graphics or heavy development) where having more than 4GB of RAM is useful. But if that was your workflow, then the MBA is the wrong machine for it. The MBA is one step above an iPad from a performance perspective so it's best suited for browsing the web, writing documents, listening to music and things as such.

You swapping your SSD out is only giving you more storage, not more speed which you already have with the current SSD.

If you think storage is going to be an issue, you should consider grabbing a larger (say 1TB) external SSD drive and leave the internal drive only for the OS and applications.

Yes I agree I have to get away from the evil Microsoft world and back to the Mac world, I did use a mac back in the early 2000's (macbook white) but after that died I just did not have the finances to buy a new one so I turned to a PC and now I am on this MBA and I am so happy.

You are right I am not a video editor or anything, I do a little blogging, writing, and simple (video edit) just add then compile and upload to youtube so this is fine, I will update the internal SSD to at least 500G and I do have an external and cloud storage.

Thanks for the advice all.