OSX process count

[v-600]

Just a quick question. How many processes is normal for OSX. Its not something I ever really thought about until today. My computer was getting sluggish so I fired up the activity monitor to see if anything was obviously slowing things down. There were 160 processes running.

I checked my windows laptop (which I am well aware has loads of background stuff intentionally running) and that only has 111 processes.

Is 160 normal? There was a little use of disk swap but on a rMBP with only 4GB of ram do I have to accept this?

 

[JAG87]

Don't even bother to compare OSX to Windows, it's just not the same at any level when it comes to process management. I am running 235 processes, there is no reason why your MBP should feel sluggish unless you are have a huge disk swap due to apps eating up your physical RAM (i.e. VMs).

A word of advice though, next time around don't buy a machine with only 4GB of soldered RAM.

 

[Eug]

4 GB RAM is a crime for a Retina MBP.

I have 4 GB in my MBP, but mine is 6 years old so I'm not keen on spending too much more on it.

 

[v-600]

It's not mine, it's works. They must have bought about 30, plus another 30 ipads and probably didn't want to spend anything above the base model (of either).

I wonder what else could be causing the slowdown. I seem to be seeing that spinning beach ball far more frequently than when the machine was new (i'm willing to admit it might be my imagination). I've had a clear out of space as I'd quickly filled the SSD. Its now got about 25GB free. There appears to be nothing hogging the processor. It just seems weirdly slow.

 

[Koing]

Restart your rMBP more often and you just need more ram. Not much you can do about that.

I sometimes get the spinning ball an I'm on 8GB 🙁. I should have gotten the 16GB dam it!

Koing

 

[NEDM64]

Yes it's normal.

The number of processes doesn't count, you can have 1 process that uses more CPU&RAM than 100 other...