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macspectrum
Known Participant
February 14, 2017
Answered

mac pro - 24 gb ram vs 48 gb ram and/or setup scratch disk

  • February 14, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1598 views

hi

bought the 2xmac pro 6 yrs ago

1.  3 x 8gb = 24 gb ram ram - faster config as per apple

1066 mhz ecc ram ddr3

mechanical HD but pretty fast

cpu = 2.8 ghz quad core intel xenon

2..other mac pro is twin except less ram 3 x  4gb recently added 4th stick ram for new total of 16 gb

about to upgrade from macOS 10.9 to 10.11 and from adobe cc 2015 to 2017

mac w/ 24 gb ram does about 50% photoshop

other about 50% indesign

both macpros have a 2nd 1tb hd for ‘clone’ purposes

about 400 gb free

will install 48 gb ram in the 24 gb mac  mac , then put that 24gb ram to other mac

any help ?

or just setup a scrtch disk using the other internal hd

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer JJMack

    Ram will not hurt.  Upgrading scratch space from HDD to SDD may be better for performance.   Photoshop always seems to use a lot of scratch even when systems have a large amount a free Ram.  So speeding up scratch may be more beneficial then add more free RAM.

    2 replies

    Randy Hufford
    Community Expert
    Randy HuffordCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 14, 2017

    I have mac's and SSD gave me better performance than more RAM. And what really helped was using a

    Velocity Solo X1 or Velocity Solo X2 but my best speed upgrade was the

    Velocity Duo x2 - Dual SSD RAID Upgrade Kit

    Check your hard drive read and write speed with Black Magic speed test.

    Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on the Mac App Store

    M
    macspectrumAuthor
    Known Participant
    February 15, 2017

    i will test both HDDs with blackmagic disk speed test and post results

    JJMack
    Community Expert
    JJMackCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    February 14, 2017

    Ram will not hurt.  Upgrading scratch space from HDD to SDD may be better for performance.   Photoshop always seems to use a lot of scratch even when systems have a large amount a free Ram.  So speeding up scratch may be more beneficial then add more free RAM.

    JJMack
    M
    macspectrumAuthor
    Known Participant
    February 14, 2017

    thx for your reply

    u are the 1st person to say that more ram can be beneficial

    the mac pro with only 3 x 4gb ram in it started to complain about ram

    once that mac pro was upgrade from macOS 10.6.8 to 10.9.5

    that mac pro was then upgraded to 4 x 4gb ram

    i will 1st look at setting the scratch disk to the other internal HD as each mac pro has 2 - the 2nd oner is for once per day cloning aka backup

    SSD is expensive an option but i do hear u loud and clear re hd vs ssd performance

    agin, thx for your reply

    JJMack
    Community Expert
    JJMackCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 14, 2017

    I do not us a mac  and I did not state the more ram will help performance.  I stated it would not degrade performance.  It will only help performance if the current amount of RAM is constraining performance  that all your ram is consistently all allocated.  Even when RAM is all allocated there may not be a performance problem Photoshop reuses RAM it allocates and does not return ram it has allocated and is not currently using.  If keep it in case  it may need it again.  Only when you close down Photoshop does it return resources it allocated from your system,

    JJMack
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