Memory clean

[stereoscopic]

I have heard memory clean is good for cleaning my ram. is this true? I have been doing a lot of xcode/photoshop lately and am low on ram. I have 4GB of ram.

 

[harryb2448]

The answer to your problem is really more memory, depending of course on the model Mac you have which is not shown. Are you telling us your Mac is slow in Xcode and photoshop?

Some think Memory Clean is good and others think it is snake oil. With adequate memory, 8-12GB, have never seen it do anything worthwhile.

 

[stereoscopic]

Yes imac 2009 is slow in xcode and photoshop. i have been seeing a lot of crucial memory ads on this site. is crucial memory good?

 

[harryb2448]

You can double the memory to 8gb if this is an early 2009, model 9.1, and 16GB if a late 2009 models 10.1 and 11.1. OWC and Crcuial recommended here. Here is OWC price for early 2009 ~ check it against Crucial.


http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/DDR3_2009

 

[Sawday]

Looking at stereoscopic's posting history it's clear, as many here suspect, that he (she?) is just a wind-up merchant.

 

[chscag]

Looking at stereoscopic's posting history it's clear, as many here suspect, that he (she?) is just a wind-up merchant.

Not true. Please do not speculate.

 

[harryb2448]

Much more of someone trying to learn I would think.

 

[chscag]

Much more of someone trying to learn I would think.

+1. Thanks Harry.

 

[MacInWin]

Yeah, looks more like a recent Windows user who is still thinking in windows terms.

 

[stereoscopic]

Yes new to mac. when I had a pc i had PC Defender Plus and and RegClean Pro. They were awful. I had my 15th BSOD and I bought a mac.

 

[MacInWin]

Stereoscopic, you just need to relax and enjoy your mac. WIndows needs all that "extra" stuff because it was inherently not secure, so it suffers from viruses/slowdows/clutter. OSX, on the other hand, started with security in mind and therefore doesn't suffer the same problems. Just run Onyx about every six months to clear out the cache and you should enjoy years of service from your Mac.

 

[chas_m]

Well, let me just add slightly to Jake's post:

To summarize, here's how to keep your Mac running its best for years on end:

1. Routine backups. All hard drives (and even SSDs) have a risk of sudden failure at any time. Age has little to do with it, though the risk does increase as time goes by. Apple provides Time Machine for free; it works well. There are other options, most of them work very well also. Pick one (or two) and use them.

2. Plenty of free space on the boot drive. By "plenty" I mean multiple gigs. I don't subscribe to the rule of "20 percent" because as drives get larger that rule gets sillier, but at least 20GB or so for light-duty users, at least double that for more serious users.

3. Run a maintenance utility regularly. We recommend the free OnyX, even though you have to work around Apple's "Gatekeeper" technology to run it. It's that good at what it does. I suggest running it roughly quarterly, perhaps a bit more often for serious power-users. AVOID MACKEEPER and similar software, they are scamware, even if you see it advertised here (Mac-Forums has *no control* over what gets advertised on the site).

Side-note: in normal use, a "defragging" of the hard drive isn't necessary, but back when major OS upgrades came out every 2-3 years I had a habit of what is called "nuke and pave," that is cloning the boot drive, erasing the boot drive, and restoring the boot drive from a cloned external. This is "poor man's defragging" and for power-users might be a good idea every year or two. There's also some programs that can handle this for you IF you have a sufficient quantity of contiguous free space (see #2 above).

4. Be aware of background programs and bad habits. More than once I've had someone complain that their Mac is terribly slow, only to discover they're running a torrenting program 24/7. Turn that off and SURPRISE, things are zippy again. A few clients who insist on keeping gigabytes of data on their desktop were astounded when I removed all that clutter and their Finder once again became fast and responsive. Know what is running in the background on your computer. Be reasonably organized with your files. Put stuff where it belongs.

5. Be aware of changing perceptions. If you originally started using your Mac five years ago to read email and surf the web, but now your shooting and editing HD wedding videos or playing high-end games, your Mac is naturally going to "feel" slower due to a combination of your changing tastes and the ever-increasing complexity of web and software technology. This is why we often say you should only expect to get about five years out of a computer investment (a bit less if we're talking about mobile devices).

Provided you have faithfully followed the steps above, your machine isn't getting slower; more likely, your needs are getting "faster." At that point its time to look at upgrades (such as more RAM and larger/faster HD or SSD storage) that will help, or perhaps its time to look at buying a new(er) machine.


PS. Memory Clean (and all programs like it) are snake oil. Either you need more real RAM for what you're doing, or the Mac will handle the memory management for you.

 

[cradom]

THIS ought to be a STICKY. ^^^

 

[Slydude]

I agree.

I often emphasize point number 5 when talking to friends whether they are on Mac or Windows. Machines can get slower because of the rift that builds up over time but more often it is because over time the software and we ourselves demand more of the computer.

 

[stereoscopic]

Thank you for your help.

 

[chscag]

@chas_m:

Great post. Bookmarked for now, and we'll see if we can turn it into a Sticky so everyone can continue to benefit from it.

Thanks.

 

[ParamedicDave]

Is Memory Clean Good?

I have heard memory clean is good for cleaning my ram. is this true? I have been doing a lot of xcode/photoshop lately and am low on ram. I have 4GB of ram.

I have used Memory Clean for about 1 year. It hasn't caused any problems, it does recover a significant percentage of RAM after I've closed various apps. Can't say I've seen a measurable performance difference, but I feel better about starting IMovie with more RAM available.

I also upgraded from 8 GB to 16, used OWC, and they are terrific: competitive pricing, fast delivery, excellent support service pre- and post sale.

 

[Slydude]

This article might prove helpful in deciding how useful Memory Clean might be. Memory Clean Frees Up Your Mac's Unused, System-Reserved RAM

Whether it is useful or not will depend upon how much memory you have and which apps you are running. The smaller the amount of physical ram you have the more likely it is to help. Especially if you routinely run apps that don't do a good job releasing memory. Not as good a solution as having more memory but that's not always possible.

 

[chscag]

I've checked out Memory Clean and Slydude is correct. It seems to work best when your memory is at a minimum. Otherwise, I would say it's something that's best left to OS X to handle. Each progressive version of OS X has improved memory handling. Yosemite for example is very efficient even with systems that have the minimum amount of memory installed. Although, in my opinion, I wouldn't want to run Yosemite with anything less than 8 GB of memory.

 

[pm-r]

An excellent post chas_m and I see you've "seen the light" about using the free space percentage recommendations.

And if I may add a small suggestion that seems to help when using the "nuke and pave" method, at least it does when using CCC, is to do a zero-out or one pass security wipe before cloning back the backup clone.

And yes, it's a great way to often speedup a Mac, at least for those Macs using HDDs. But I believe that such a procedure is not recommended when using a SSD. Maybe someone can give better advice regarding nuking SSDs.