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William
Asked: 2011-11-07 16:02:08 +0800 CST

Will adding more RAM increase my computer's performance?

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I am looking to increase my computer's performance. Will upgrading my RAM by 12GB or upgrading to a 7,200 RPM Hard Drive increase my computer's performance more? I can only do one, which one will make my computer run faster? Please cite something in your answer for my own confidence. Thanks!

11.10

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Open a terminal window and run the command

    free

    It will show you if your hard disk is used for memory caching (which is slow, and should be minimised). The value you should read is Swap x used. Normally, if you have over 3GB, the Swap that is used should be 0, that is, not used at all. So, with 6GB or more RAM, you definitely do not use the disk for swapping.

    The other thing is the hard disk, which are slow compared to an SSD disk. If you want to invest on a faster computer, then you can get an SSD disk, and install Ubuntu on this fast disk. You can still use your existing hard disk for storage of files. The SSD will be blazing fast and Ubuntu will boot + run very fast. It makes a big difference.

    UPDATE You can replace your existing laptop hard disk with a 2.5" SSD disk. These SSD disks are more expensive than traditional hard disks, but they are blazingly fast. You can convert your old laptop hard disk into an external hard disk by buying a 2.5" external USB disk case.

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  2. It really depends on how your system is using memory now. Examine the output of vmstat to become more informed of why data is hitting the disks. Much I/O in Linux is initiated indirectly, from flushing caches or dirty pages. These things can also be tuned. So it really comes down to.

    1. What are you doing with your box that you think adding more to it will help?
    2. Is it worth the price?

    Tuning is fun sure, but throwing away money, not so much.

    I write this from a i5 4 cpu laptop, with 4G, and a 128 SSD. The only times I have cause for complaint is when I'm compiling multiple packages.

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  3. Well 8GB RAM is fairly cheap now. I bought 4GB a wile ago for about 60-70£ and now 8GB is 30-40£ so its very worthwhile. 12GB RAM will basically set you good to run a lot of applications at the same time as I do. When running on 4GB I found some programs to become not responsive when low on RAM (over 10 programs open normally), especially if I am running a virtual machine.

    I'm talking desktop/workstation wise here not laptop ext.

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