A reader asks: How do I know if I have enough RAM? (Question sent to me via Quora)
Every device (PCs, tablets, smartphones…), and every user, has a unique answer for “what’s enough RAM?”
In a perfect world, RAM would you hold all of your running programs and processes in their entirety, live; letting the hard drive (whether solid state or not) handle only initial retrieval and later long-term storage.
But in the real world of large programs, software limitations, and finite hardware, when RAM runs short, the system temporarily writes (“pages”) some of the live code out to the hard drive, and then calls it back in when it’s needed again.
Because writing and reading code to and from the hard drive takes time, this swapping in/out of code is why a RAM-starved PC will seem slow: Everything may actually be working full tilt boogie, but instead of all that effort going into actually performing the task at hand, the system instead has to devote time and effort simply shuffling code in and out of RAM.
Some code-swapping is normal, but as a general rule of thumb — fuzzy and imprecise as it is — if your device (PC, tablet, smartphone…) routinely uses more than about 75% of available RAM in normal operation, you’re probably getting close to maxing out your setup. If it’s routinely at or over about 85% RAM used, you’re almost surely experiencing swapping/paging-induced delays.
In Windows, you can use Task Manager or Resource Monitor to track RAM usage (and other system activity) in real time. With the live performance graphs running, you can see RAM use initially go up — perfectly normally — when you load and launch large programs; but when RAM reaches whatever internal trigger it’s set to obey (say, 85%+ RAM in use), you’ll then see periodic, ongoing bursts of disk activity as the OS has to swap live code in/out to keep the CPU supplied with something to do.
(Pro tip: Video editors and virtual PCs are RAM hungry. Easily test how your system handles the demand for RAM by editing one or more large video files, or by opening several virtual PCs at the same time.)
It’s harder to see what’s going on with Android and iOS devices, but the respective app stores have several tools that can perform a similar function as Windows’ Task Manager and Resource Monitor.
So, how much is enough RAM? Other pretty good rules of thumb are:
PC: 32-bit hardware and OS (mostly older systems): provide 4GB (the max allowed by 32-bit architecture), or as close to that as your system allows.
PC: 64-bit PC hardware and OS (eg Win10): 6-8GB is generally OK for light/routine operation; 8-12GB for occasional heavy duty operation; 12-16GB for routine heavy duty use, or for helping to future-proof a PC you plan to keep for a while; 32GB+ for extreme tasks such as 4K+ video editing, very high-end gaming, VR apps, and so on.
Smartphones: Most phone RAM is not user-upgradable, so you more or less have to live with what you have. But 2-3GB is a current sweetspot for average phones; 4GB+ for high-end phones.
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