# Ram?



## bucket (Apr 6, 2011)

So i am new to lightroom and like it! but it runs a bit slow, I optimize my catalog weekly and was looking in to getting more ram but was wondering if it will actually use it. 

my system.
15in Mac Book Pro
2.4 intel i5 
4 GB ram

thanks 
Chris


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 6, 2011)

Chris, welcome to the forum!

Which bits are running slowly?  And where are the images stored?

Have you opened Activity Monitor to see if you're maxing out your RAM?


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## sizzlingbadger (Apr 6, 2011)

I have a 13" MacBook Pro and adding memory from 4GB to 6GB didn't make a huge difference. Swapping out the 5200rpm drive for a bigger 7200rpm helped quite a bit though. This was with everything stored on the internal drive.


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## edgley (Apr 7, 2011)

Also could consider a FW800 external drive too.
Not sure if you still have to unscrew a MBP to get to the disc?


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## bucket (Apr 7, 2011)

It gets slow when I import things and editing, more so when I'm using the brush. 

All my photos are stores on the internal HD it's the 500GB I don't remember what speed it is. 

I also have an external 1T USB3 drive but I don't think it reads faster then the internal one.


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## edgley (Apr 8, 2011)

I doubt it will either, its only running at USB2 speeds.


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## gregDT (Apr 11, 2011)

The import and brush edits do suggest the bottle neck is with disc write speed. One suggestion might be to relocate the cache files onto the external drive. I'm not technically proficient enough to fully understand why but I have read several sources that suggest Lightroom, Photoshop, Capture NX2 etc get a speed boost if they read and write their cache files to a drive other than the one they are on themselves.


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