[ale] Upgrading RAM?

[JK]

David Tomaschik wrote:

> Slightly OT, but I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to upgrade the 
> RAM in my desktop.  The machine is a 2.8GHz P4 (HT) and currently has 
> 1GB of PC3200.  It has 750GB of disk, and a fairly normal report from 
> 'free' looks something like:
> 
> $ free -m
>              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> Mem:          1011        920         90          0         71        339
> -/+ buffers/cache:        509        501
> Swap:         2008        455       1552
> 
> 
>  From newegg, 2x512 would run me about $55, 2x1GB for about $105.  I 
> realize there's a lot of RAM sitting in buffers and cache, but it also 
> seems to throw a lot out to swap.  I mainly use the machine for 
> development, web browsing, email (Thunderbird probably uses 1/3 of my 
> system memory at any given time), and for remote file access (via SSH). 
> Is it worth upgrading?

Does it feel slow?

Pretty much all of the cached pages are effectively free, so
it looks like you're only using 50% to 65% of the RAM you've
got now.

-- JK

-- 
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be
dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens