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Can I migrate a 16 GB RAM iMac to an 8 GB RAM MacBook Pro? The iMac is a mid-2010 27”. The MBP is a mid-2013. Both devices have a 1TB SSD so storage is not a problem.
thanks for any advice!
(Reason I ask is I’m updating to a new MBP. My other option would be to get a 2TB SSD MBP with 16gb RAM and then merge both the older iMac and older MBP to the one new MBP. )
iMac 27", macOS 10.13
DHodges wrote:
Can I migrate a 16 GB RAM iMac to an 8 GB RAM MacBook Pro? The iMac is a mid-2010 27”. The MBP is a mid-2013. Both devices have a 1TB SSD so storage is not a problem.
thanks for any advice!
(Reason I ask is I’m updating to a new MBP. My other option would be to get a 2TB SSD MBP with 16gb RAM and then merge both the older iMac and older MBP to the one new MBP. )
Yes you can —
However I would not recommend less RAM as you move forward.
DHodges wrote:
Can I migrate a 16 GB RAM iMac to an 8 GB RAM MacBook Pro? The iMac is a mid-2010 27”. The MBP is a mid-2013. Both devices have a 1TB SSD so storage is not a problem.
thanks for any advice!
(Reason I ask is I’m updating to a new MBP. My other option would be to get a 2TB SSD MBP with 16gb RAM and then merge both the older iMac and older MBP to the one new MBP. )
Yes you can —
However I would not recommend less RAM as you move forward.
The penalty for too little real RAM is that the additional RAM required will be simulated on the boot drive, more than 100 times slower.
Readers have reported that 6GB or less of real RAM is a palpable pinch-point, resulting in unresponsive performance for 10.11 El Capitan and later.
Going forward, I would never recommend less than 8GB of RAM for "ordinary" applications, and when it comes to photo or video editing, "Never Enough"!!
Activity monitor shows around 9-11gb RAM used - with 9 apps open including Parallels/Windows10, Safari, Photos and IMovie.
Of that total, App memory ranges 4-6gb; Wired memory 4-5gb; Compressed <300mb.
Add an extra gb to those numbers if I also open iTunes.
if I understand all replies here, yes, it could work. But I would have to expect to run only a few apps at a time and expect laborious response times for Photo and video processing?
Does Catalina and higher CPU processing on a new MBP improve any thing in this case? The iMac is maxed out at OS HIgh Sierra / 3.2 GHz Intel Core i3
Thank s much!
How much is actually used depends slightly on how much is present. Older cached files will be squeezed out when memory starts to get tight, then it compresses more vigorously, then finally uses Swap to simulate more on the boot drive when needed.
You assessment about performance sounds correct.
The modern methods for managing memory were first implemented in Mavericks, and have remained basically unchanged. Later versions of MacOS take up somewhat more RAM by themselves, so it does not seem like a later version would be remarkably better.
Migrate to lesser RAM MBP?
