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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

Mavericks GM hasn't been too good for my 2011 MacBook Pro. This machine has only 4 GB RAM, and it shows. It's swapping noticeably more than before, and overall everything feels less snappy than on Mountain Lion.

On the other hand, the battery life is definitely better. It's not really worth the performance hit, though...

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I'm using Mavericks GM with 2011 MBA with 4GB RAM. It's snappy, and definitely feels no worse than Mountain Lion.

Late 2010 MBA using the old Mavericks GM - 13A598 - is fine. No different than 10.8 at all. 4 GB RAM on a C2D. I really don't think I would have even noticed the difference had I not had to run the installer.

Interesting, the RAM compression should actually increase performance. Well I would highly recommend an SSD for you, with 4gb RAM my Macbook Air flies, and it's all thanks to the SSD.

Of course throwing money at a problem could fix it, but the point is that there shouldn't be a problem here...

What year Air? I'll likely be making the switch on my late '11 model with 4GB. Skipped Mountain Lion due to laziness and skepticism on performance.

I'm in the exact same boat as you. Imma wait it out a few weeks, let the bugs get sorted out, and update. Maybe...

2011 Macbook Air

I have macbook 2010 pro with 8gb of memory ob board. My machine swaps a lot, it's really gets out of hand. I'm not sure if SSD can fix this problem.

It "fixes" the problem by making the swaps a lot faster, and silent - so you don't notice them!

I second the SSD upgrade. I regularly use three different MacBook Pros -- two with standard hard drives and one with an SSD. The SSD makes a world of difference. It feels like a new machine. I never have to wait for anything, not even Photoshop or Word. With the standard hard drives I always get spinning pinwheels, 5 minute boots, etc. In my opinion, even the 2013 MBPs are unbearably slow with standard hard drives.

According to Siracusa's review, Mavericks resorts to using swap as the last possible resort, and then as sparsely as possible.

Maybe check to see what apps or plug-ins is hogging all the RAM? Which should also be very hard to do in Mavericks.

4GB + HDD was a dead combination ever since 10.7.

Fresh Mavericks setup + a Safari window - 3.7GB or RAM.

Just upgrade mate. It will make a huge difference.

Lower your standards -- I've been using that for years. ;-)

When SSDs big enough for amateur photographers are affordable, I'll consider the switch.

The new MacBook Pros all have USB3, as well as Thunderbolt, for external drives. Or get a NAS; I have 2TB in RAID1 and it cost me under $300.

care to elaborate how you pulled off 2TB/RAID1 for under $300? I'm undertaking a similar project soon and am looking for advice

I got a couple of 2TB WD Greens for $85 apiece and a ZyXEL NSA221 two-bay NAS (some ARM chip running what I think is Debian but I've never bothered to look) for $120. I think that one's discontinued now, though.

Thanks for the response; what is your take on replace the ZyXEL with a RaspPi?

No idea. I assume it'd work, but how will you connect the drives?

You need to define what you mean by "big enough" and "affordable", considering there are now 1TB SSD for ~$500, which I personally consider both "big enough" and "affordable enough"

That's plenty big enough, but kind of pricey compared to $65 for a 1TB hard drive. Try to get either of those capacities in a laptop (I take pictures when I travel), and the gap gets even bigger.

I didn't mean change the machine, just install more memory.

16GB is roughly $100.

> 16GB is roughly $100.

Depends on the vintage of your laptop. Cheapest I can find on Crucial US at present is $164 for 16 GB DDR3.

For 2008 laptops, DDR2 is coming in at $220 for 8GB.

so, I should stay on snow leopard? years old install + chrome uses 2.6GB

snow leopard has ZFS, stay for that alone.

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