Has anyone ever found 4GB or ram insufficient in their Macbook for med school purposes?

[FlatIsJustice]

I am thinking about switching to OSX but I don't know how much RAM I will need. Just for med school purposes has anyone ran out of ram?

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[eteshoe]

Depends on the type of user you are. I have 16GB and still push it to the limit (I do some comp heavy bioinformatics and modeling). For typical users I'd recommend at least 8GB of RAM

 

[Jabbed]

4 GB is plenty for flipping through powerpoints all day, every day for 2 years.

I think you might be confusing RAM for memory, as you don't really 'run out of RAM'. Memory = how much space you have to store stuff. RAM = (loosely) how fast your programs will run.

 

[Psai]

Just download some ram

 

[ChrisMack390]

If you are doing internet/slides/q-bank/etc 4 GB is more than you will ever use. If you plan on getting deep into data analysis you may need more, but only if you're doing pretty serious stuff - you can definitely run Stata or R on 4 GB ram.

 

[sazerac]

As an experiment, I bought the cheapest, smallest, most underpowered MacBook Air available when I started medical school, figuring if I ran out of some resource I could just upgrade it later. It has been fine for all of medical school, which largely consists of watching videos, downloading power points, and writing the occasional report. It has 4GB RAM and is still running fine.

The only resource I did run out of was storage. I think it came with 128GB. My wife started using my laptop, and she has a s***-ton of photos. We tried the cloud thing for a while, and we tried an external USB drive for a while, but sometimes you just need more primary storage to make your laptop great again.

It is surprisingly easy to upgrade the storage on a Mac. Amazon sells these kits that come with a screw driver and well written instructions that walk you through transferring the brains into your new storage, removing the old storage, and installing the new storage. I don't think it even took me an hour. Very happy with that purchase. We now have a 1TB solid state drive for storage and it should probably last us through residency too.

 

[Robotfishbrain]

Hm, I'd say you need more than 4GB but not because of medical school reasons per say..

During my undergrad and my current job I use a very simple laptop for classes and work. I don't know who does bio-modelling and other heavy processing on their own laptops. Generally any lab that requires heavy computing power will have better machines (generally servers) than you can purchase. I'm in the exact position you're in with a 4GB laptop but I can just SSH (aka remotely connect from my home) into our lab's server and run my data analysis this way.

HOWEVER

With the way Windows and MAC operating systems are moving, sooner or later they will use 3GB to 4GB to simply run in the background (currently they use ~2GB). So yes, you will need more ram -- 8GB minimum.

I'm sorry for the pedantic reply, I'm bored at work waiting for some analyses to finish! =)

 

[Mr Roboto]

I run 16 GB and have never utilized more than 10 GB at a time.

 

[BurghStudent]

8GB should be standard minimums. Just feels better. Then again if I had the money I'd get 32GB. You can never have enough RAM.

 

[theSmurfette]

I am thinking about switching to OSX but I don't know how much RAM I will need. Just for med school purposes has anyone ran out of ram?

I have an early-2014 MBA with 4gb RAM. I have never had a problem unless I've left Safari open for weeks and never closed it out. Once I close it out and re-open Safari, problem gone!

So I think 4gb of ram is enough, never had any problems with VLC, PowerPoint and Word open at the same time when I was in M1/M2.

 

[sazerac]

It's always seemed to me that upgrading RAM is one of the most sure-fire ways to ensure the longevity of a computer.

In the past that was true, but I just didn't find that to be the case in medical school.

We always needed more RAM in the past because paging to the disk was so slow, but with laptops running on fast flash drives these days it's less of an issue. The first resource I ran out of in medical school was disk storage not RAM. I was quite surprised.

 

[mimelim]

It's always seemed to me that upgrading RAM is one of the most sure-fire ways to ensure the longevity of a computer.

My MBP has 4gb of ram on the video card. I don't know why or imagine that I will ever use it, but it has it. I see no reason to not max the computer's ram since it is dirt cheap compared to the rest of the computer. However, I agree with @sazerac. I gave them so much **** for putting a 2 TB SSD and told them that whatever cash they burned to put it in could have just been given to me. But, I already know that fast storage is going to be the biggest issue at this point. The hybrid table and our OR cameras output uncompressed 1080 or 4k, which is just plain stupid. The last case video that I put together was just over an hour of operating time with 3 feeds, 100gb without breaking a sweat -.-.

 

[Panis et Circenses]

8GB should be standard minimums. Just feels better. Then again if I had the money I'd get 32GB. You can never have enough RAM.

You'd definitely hit a bottleneck somewhere else before you'd ever need 32 GB of RAM. I've built computers for a few years now, and 32 GB is absolutely overkill. And for 99.99% of users, it would be like getting a car with a 16 cylinder engine for just cruising around town, and occasionally going on the freeway. The only time you would need more than 8 GB of RAM is if you are into heavy video editing software, or into heavy gaming with 4k graphics or something (and at that point, you'd probably need a dedicated video card with 6+ GB RAM, and a core i7 processor).

However, me, as a standard user, I have never gone over 8 GB of ram, but I am almost always above 4, usually at 4.7 - 5.5 GB of ram used. I am a person who has multiple tabs open, usually iTunes open, MS office, and Adobe Acrobat going with a few tabs. I would recommend 8 GB to almost anyone, even casual users.

 

[Panis et Circenses]

It's always seemed to me that upgrading RAM is one of the most sure-fire ways to ensure the longevity of a computer.

If you have a really old computer, usually it didn't have enough RAM to upgrade to a newer operating system. . If you have a regular hard drive, upgrading to a solid state drive is the easiest way to get a HUGE performance boost without doing anything else. Nowadays, though, the bottleneck usually occurs with the processor. Older computers running on ancient processors are essentially worthless because replacing a processor is usually impossible because the CPU has to be compatible with the motherboard. And newer CPUs almost always aren't. So make sure you consider the processor when buying a computer as well, OP. I wouldn't get anything worse than an intel i5 (or AMD equivalent).

 

[mimelim]

Okay, I found something that required a ton of RAM this morning, granted not on my Mac, Astroneer was using 14 gb of RAM on its own. Then again, maybe playing non-optimized pre-alpha games isn't a great test example.

 

[t5Nitro]

My MBP has 4gb of ram on the video card. I don't know why or imagine that I will ever use it, but it has it. I see no reason to not max the computer's ram since it is dirt cheap compared to the rest of the computer. However, I agree with @sazerac. I gave them so much **** for putting a 2 TB SSD and told them that whatever cash they burned to put it in could have just been given to me. But, I already know that fast storage is going to be the biggest issue at this point. The hybrid table and our OR cameras output uncompressed 1080 or 4k, which is just plain stupid. The last case video that I put together was just over an hour of operating time with 3 feeds, 100gb without breaking a sweat -.-.

I didn't even know you could get a SSD with that much storage. My 2012 rMBP has only 250 GB SSD, and it's about full. Are these able to be replaced by the folks at the stores and transferring the data or is it worth just buying a new computer for what they'll likely charge?

I was looking at the portable SSDs from samsung recently. Maybe I should just upgrade the one in the computer.

 

[Panis et Circenses]

I didn't even know you could get a SSD with that much storage. My 2012 rMBP has only 250 GB SSD, and it's about full. Are these able to be replaced by the folks at the stores and transferring the data or is it worth just buying a new computer for what they'll likely charge?

I was looking at the portable SSDs from samsung recently. Maybe I should just upgrade the one in the computer.

Honestly it's not that hard to do yourself. Just search tutorials on how to open your specific computer. You can clone your old drive, or just set it up as a "new computer" by installing the OS from a bootable USB drive, and then transfer the files via a sata to USB cable (my preference). If it were me, and I had a well built computer with a good processor I would definitely just replace the hard drive. Buying a SSD with over 250 GB will probably be north of a hundred dollars though. If you don't want to do it yourself, I would just buy a SSD online, then ask a place how much it would cost them in labor to put it in. That way you'd probably have less of a chance of getting screwed over.

 

[Psai]

Okay, I found something that required a ton of RAM this morning, granted not on my Mac, Astroneer was using 14 gb of RAM on its own. Then again, maybe playing non-optimized pre-alpha games isn't a great test example.

Not everyones a rocket surgeon

 

[mimelim]

I didn't even know you could get a SSD with that much storage. My 2012 rMBP has only 250 GB SSD, and it's about full. Are these able to be replaced by the folks at the stores and transferring the data or is it worth just buying a new computer for what they'll likely charge?

I was looking at the portable SSDs from samsung recently. Maybe I should just upgrade the one in the computer.

I have no idea what the Apple store folks can/can't do. This is my first mac since my G4 cube in high school. I don't think that it would be hard to do it yourself, certainly on my PCs I'd do it without blinking, but it is a Mac, so it isn't exactly designed for it. A 2TB drive runs ~$800 from newegg (somehow Apple jacks this up to 1200+).

Not everyones a rocket surgeon

I submitted my paperwork to NASA for their astronaut training program last year 🙂

 

[sazerac]

I didn't even know you could get a SSD with that much storage. My 2012 rMBP has only 250 GB SSD, and it's about full. Are these able to be replaced by the folks at the stores and transferring the data or is it worth just buying a new computer for what they'll likely charge?

I was looking at the portable SSDs from samsung recently. Maybe I should just upgrade the one in the computer.

Here is an article about the Transcend kit I used: http://www.imore.com/how-upgrade-your-macbook-air-more-storage

They say (and I agree) it takes less that half an hour to install the hardware. The kit comes with both screwdrivers you'll need.

I tried portable SSDs for a while and also tried using a flush-mounted SD card (I think those are up to 256GB now), but in the end having a fast large main drive is the way to go for minimum pain in the ass. Extra dangling hardware is awkward, and the SD camera slot is too slow.

 

[Mr Roboto]

I've never upgraded a MBA but the older MBPs are very easy to upgrade... took maybe 20 minutes to install RAM and an SSD in my late 2011 model. I had no prior experience, just used youtube vids and ifixit articles as a guide.

 

[popopopop]

4 GB is plenty for flipping through powerpoints all day, every day for 2 years.

I think you might be confusing RAM for memory, as you don't really 'run out of RAM'. Memory = how much space you have to store stuff. RAM = (loosely) how fast your programs will run.

What are you talking about? RAM literally stands for random-access memory. You certainly do run out of RAM if you have too many processes running.

I didn't even know you could get a SSD with that much storage. My 2012 rMBP has only 250 GB SSD, and it's about full. Are these able to be replaced by the folks at the stores and transferring the data or is it worth just buying a new computer for what they'll likely charge?

I was looking at the portable SSDs from samsung recently. Maybe I should just upgrade the one in the computer.

If you have static documents, pics, or movies that you don't use often, consider an external hard drive for way cheaper. If you need something portable, a 128gb flash drive is around $30 bucks nowadays.

 

[Panis et Circenses]

What are you talking about? RAM literally stands for random-access memory. You certainly do run out of RAM if you have too many processes running.



If you have static documents, pics, or movies that you don't use often, consider an external hard drive for way cheaper. If you need something portable, a 128gb flash drive is around $30 bucks nowadays.

Yep technically both RAM and ROM are memory (random access memory [RAM] and read only memory [ROM]). Although RAM is generically referred to as just "memory" and ROM is referred to as "storage".

I have a computer where I just keep a very small 128 GB flashdrive sticking in the side of it (about the size of the nail on your pinky finger). I use it to store whatever else can't fit on my hard drive. It literally cost 30 dollars, plus I didn't have to worry about opening up the computer, cloning a drive, etc. Also it's pretty handy to always have a flash drive on me, so I can easily transfer files from computer to computer.

 

[akinetopsia]

I'd echo what other people have said that for most users 4GB is more than enough, but you will probably want to have as much storage space as possible. It goes by fast, especially if you are putting videos/photos/music/documents/PDFs on it. I have a Macbook Pro with ~ 500GB, a SP4 i5 with 256 GB (I also put in a 128GB card in the slot on the back), and I have a 2TB external HDD.

 

[Mr Roboto]

I don't understand what you guys are storing that eats up so much space. I've got a 250gb SSD but it's not even 2/3 full after years of putting stuff on it.

 

[t5Nitro]

I don't understand what you guys are storing that eats up so much space. I've got a 250gb SSD but it's not even 2/3 full after years of putting stuff on it.

Cameras taking 30+ MB raw photos and 4k video doesn't take long to fill.

 

[Mr Roboto]

Cameras taking 30+ MB raw photos and 4k video doesn't take long to fill.

The cost-effective answer is an SSD jump drive, not upgrading your internal SSD.

 

[mimelim]

I don't understand what you guys are storing that eats up so much space. I've got a 250gb SSD but it's not even 2/3 full after years of putting stuff on it.

The cost-effective answer is an SSD jump drive, not upgrading your internal SSD.

It is about convenience. Lugging around external drives runs the risk of physically losing the drive, which happens quite often. Also not unheard of for physical damage to be an issue. But, most importantly, it costs time. For example, I have 4 surgical videos that I'm currently working on. Moving ~100gb on and off of an external drive every time I switch projects is a pain in the ass. Storing things that you don't use/look at on an external makes a lot of sense. But, depending on what you do with your computer, your working storage needs can easily be 1 TB+.

As another aside, if you do any gaming on the computer, that space also disappears fast. I didn't realize how much disk space many modern games take. What little I play now is generally older, but unless things have changes a lot recently, most people recommend games be played off of your internal SSD.

 

[Mr Roboto]

It is about convenience. Lugging around external drives runs the risk of physically losing the drive, which happens quite often. Also not unheard of for physical damage to be an issue. But, most importantly, it costs time. For example, I have 4 surgical videos that I'm currently working on. Moving ~100gb on and off of an external drive every time I switch projects is a pain in the ass. Storing things that you don't use/look at on an external makes a lot of sense. But, depending on what you do with your computer, your working storage needs can easily be 1 TB+.

As another aside, if you do any gaming on the computer, that space also disappears fast. I didn't realize how much disk space many modern games take. What little I play now is generally older, but unless things have changes a lot recently, most people recommend games be played off of your internal SSD.

Ok, just going off what my friends who do videography for their living told me! I'm not sure how it all works but they said they keep their project video samples on separate externals throughout the editing process, to save space on their computers.

 

[terra330]

Right now on my mac, with nothing open except 6 Chrome tabs, my system is using about 6.5GBs. Personally I wouldn't recommend having anything under 8GB of RAM in 2017, but 16GB would be better, especially if this is a computer you're going to be using for a while.

4 GB is plenty for flipping through powerpoints all day, every day for 2 years.

I think you might be confusing RAM for memory, as you don't really 'run out of RAM'. Memory = how much space you have to store stuff. RAM = (loosely) how fast your programs will run.

RAM (Random Access Memory) and memory are more or less interchangeable terms in this context. What you're calling "Memory" is generally referred to as "storage".

RAM is extremely fast, but the data is lost when power is lost. So when you're actually running an application, the system will load it and its resources into memory so that it can do all that stuff quickly. If you run out of RAM, then the computer has to either close applications or use the storage as ram, which is much slower. Fast storage, like a SSD, can help reduce the performance deficit that you get when you run out of RAM, but it's still around an order of magnitude slower.

I didn't even know you could get a SSD with that much storage. My 2012 rMBP has only 250 GB SSD, and it's about full. Are these able to be replaced by the folks at the stores and transferring the data or is it worth just buying a new computer for what they'll likely charge?

I was looking at the portable SSDs from samsung recently. Maybe I should just upgrade the one in the computer.

For the 2012 rMBP, there are adapters out there that will allow you to use standard mSATA drives. I upgraded mine to 1TB (Samsung Evo 1TB is around $350) that way and stuck the original drive (which was a 512GB unit) in an external enclosure that I got for $30.