if you said doubling RAM beyond 32GB is effectively pointless in DT-land due to little or no improvement in speed, I would believe you.
I didn’t and wouldn’t. DEVONthink always benefits from as much RAM as possible.
I can’t help but wonder if I could combine two huge databases into one without beach-balling?
Why?
For all the usual reasons I suppose; replicating, tagging, searching contents etc. are much preferred by me to be in one database.
I’m prone to forget that I closed what I generically call “database 2.” By forgetting, I miss important search hits when only “database 1” is open, until I realize this.
I’m hoping a fast machine will allow the two to be merged 
. …though I must say; I anticipate both databases will grow significantly as the years go on.
Noted though we generally advocate smaller, more focused databases over singular mnonolithic ones.
Thanks again Jim for preempting two questions I was formulating and sort of only had half formed. Get as much RAM as reasonable and, in general, focussed databases. RAM is cheaper than it was too and it doesn’t seem to me to make much sense to consider an AirBook, which I am, and be stingy on the couple of hundred dollars to get it to 24GB or whatever it can take. I take it a macbook Air is, in your view, sufficient to run DEVONthink 3 ?
I am answering this on an M1 MacBook Air with 16GB and it’s an absolute monster in all capacities.
A question I should have asked a long time ago: does the “quality” of a sophisticated search in the contents of text in a massively-huge DT database (one that would be much larger than what you would recommend, let’s say), potentially result in poorer search results when the search is looking for text in the contents of OCR’ed PDFs?
…and if the answer is yes, I’m also curious if a massive amount of RAM (say, 32 GB) and/or certain CPU specs could potentially produce better results for the very same search? (This sounds crazy if true–hence the reason I’ve been a bit afraid to ask 
).
For me, searches are usually pretty elaborate with oftentimes lots of parents and “NEAR” operator usage in the same search, in which I’m looking for contents in-text of OCR’ed PDF’s.
Thanks!
No, more RAM would not produce better results. More RAM just allows you to open more or larger databases. The CPU and RAM affect performance, not the quality of search results.
Just buy as much machine as you can afford.
This answer is a sigh of relief in a way. TY for clarifying.
I’m waiting for the new MBP models to hit the market this Fall and get scrutinized for flaws by early consumers, then will pull the trigger. I’m wayy overdue for an upgrade!
I’m salivating over the Midnight Air, ahem… meaning the M2 MacBook Air in Midnight Black, not the air at 12:00am 