Upgrading MPB from 4GB to 6GB

[ehendrix]

Been contemplating to upgrade the memory in my MPB from 4GB to 6GB and then possibly setting my VM memory to 3GB from the current 1.5GB. Its not that I have been seeing a lot of trashing occurring but I now also started using my VM in Unity mode.

Anyone else done this and had good experience in regards of performance with doing this? Just trying to get a feel, hate to spend the money and not get anything from it. Tough economic times.

Thanks to all.

[SvenGus]

I have recently upgraded my Macbook Pro (2009) from 4 to 8 GB RAM (and also with a 500 GB 7200 rpm HD): well, I didn't notice much difference between assigning 2 GB and 4 GB to a Windows 7 x64 VM; but that's probably also because I use it mostly for "light" tasks.

So I, too, would pose essentially your same question: is it better to assign half of the real RAM to VM, or less?

On a related front, I'm not sure, either, if it is better to have the VMs on a 5400 rpm external FW800 drive, or on an internal 7200 rpm SATA-300 drive: surely, in the second case the MBP gets hotter, with the fans running more frequently, especially in clamshell mode.

[Entegy]

Really it depends on what you're doing. Do you like to run large applications at the same time as your vms? Multiple vms at the same time? Or large applications in your vms? Then the more RAM, the better. Even Windows 7 as a guest can run fine on 1.5GB on light-to-medium usage. When something like gaming comes into the picture, you will definitely benefit from more RAM.

I would think errors from Unity mode would have less to do with RAM though. That's just my thought.