Performance boost for MacBook: Hybrid hard drive or 4GB RAM?

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I have an aluminium 13" MacBook with 2GB or RAM and 5400RPM 500GB hard drive. The main tasks I perform are developing iPhone and Mac apps in Xcode and websites in Coda.

I want to improve the performance so I am considering buying 4GB of RAM or a 500GB Seagate solid-state hybrid drive. What is likely to provide the biggest performance boost?

Benedict Cohen

Posted 2010-06-01T16:17:07.293

Reputation: 167

Answers

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Given just 2GB of RAM and the tasks you're doing, it sounds much more likely that you're RAM-constrained rather than disk I/O performance-constrained.

Spiff

Posted 2010-06-01T16:17:07.293

Reputation: 84 656

I agree, you need more RAM. Why not get both? – churnd – 2010-06-01T16:48:33.457

You can check your free memory on Activity Monitor's System Memory tab. But, yeah, what they said. – JRobert – 2010-06-01T20:12:15.353

Look for Page Outs on Activity Monitor as a good indicator if you need more RAM. But with 2GB, you most likely do. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/26

– cregox – 2010-12-06T19:16:24.883

Asked: 2010-06-01T16:17:07.293

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Active: 2018-10-10T06:38:38.077