Buyer's Guide: MacBook Pro Memory

See Checking memory use on Mac OS X to understand how memory is used.

The 2011 MacBook Pro accepts up to 16GB memory, which can make a large difference in performance for some users. The 2009 and 1010 MacBook and MacBook Pro are limited to 8GB memory.

For most users, 8GB is enough, and for photo users, 8GB provides a nice bump up in performance over 4GB.

Heavy-duty users can go to 12GB or 16GB.

Virtually every Mac can benefit from going to at least 4GB of memory. That’s because Mac OS X can use extra memory for caching, which speeds up all sorts of operations system-wide. This is particularly important with laptops, because it reduces hard drive access, which is both slow and consumes power.

The OWC 4GB memory module for MacBook Pro