In Mavericks, under the laptop battery icon, there is a section called “Apps Using Significant Energy.” Devonthink Pro Office is always listed. Why is this? What is there about DTPO that uses more than a normal amount of energy?
My MacBook Pro Retina normally doesn’t list DEVONthink Pro Office (or any other application) as using significant energy when operating under battery power.
If, however, my laptop had run out of free RAM and was heavily using Virtual Memory, which swaps data back and forth between RAM and VM swap files on the computer’s drive, I would expect DEVONthink Pro Office to use more battery energy than if Virtual Memory were not being used.
My MBP has 16 GB RAM, and with the set of databases I have open there’s still almost 6 GB free RAM, so I don’t use Virtual Memory.
Of course, if I were to convert a number of non-searchable PDFs to searchable PDFs while on battery power, that would trigger significant CPU and disk use, and DEVONthink Pro Office might be listed as using a significant amount of energy. Capturing a lot of new content while on battery power involves CPU use and disk activity. But I’ve been doing a number of searches, viewing a number of documents and making notes while on battery power, and DEVONthink Pro Office isn’t listed as a significant user of energy on my Mac. On yours, with perhaps less RAM and/or larger database content, DEVONthink seems to make that list.
Thanks for the excellent diagnosis. I have a MacBook Pro 15-inch mid 2010 with 4 GB of RAM; it never occurred to me that memory might be an issue. I like the machine and want it to last at least another couple of years. And that means it’s probably worth the $100 or so to increase the ram to its maximum of 8 GB.