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Virtual Ram In OSX
Is there a setting for v-ram in OSX like there was in OS-9? We have a G4 running OS at work who’s primary drive is down to 2 gigs free space. I added an additional drive and I want the OS to go to it for v-ram when needed. Do I have to set something for this or is the OS “smart” enough to see it and use it for v-ram? Thanks for any info on this.
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3 Replies
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You just need more actual, physical RAM. It’s real cheap nowadays, and it will always be faster than pagein/outs with Virtual Memory. OS X allocates VM on the fly if/as needed; AFAIK there’s no user setting. Back In The Day, OS9 and its ancestors provided the optional abillity to set up disk space for VM, when RAM was hundreds of dollars for a 32MB stick, a 20GB drive was HUGE, and there was a door in front of the CPU to shovel coal in.
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Technically you can go into the terminal app and do some Root level stuff to adjust the virtual memory settings, but you are better off leaving it alone. In general, you should leave 10% of your hard disk space free for the system to swap with. If you go under that you might begin to see problems. As stated above, the more RAM you can get the better off you will be.
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Thanks for your replies. Well, the system has a gig of ram, and because of it’s age we won’t be spending any more money on this hardware (the hard drive I put in was a spare). I noticed the system was hanging up a lot (spinning beach ball of death) and thought it may be because the system drive was full and it didn’t have enough “breathing space” for the v-ram. Running disk utility didn’t help.
No big deal. We’re slated for a new roster of machines soon and can finally put this clunker out to pasture. Thanks again.
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