How much RAM for Brother Multi-function Mono Laser?

[Buzz]

I ordered the Brother MFC-8860DN recommended by Silencio a few days ago in an earlier thread, and got it for $420 vs. $780 for comparably featured Canon. According to company provided statistics, the Brother is also about half the price long-term for consumables; approx $800 per 25,000 pages for the Canon, and roughly $400 per 25K pages for the Brother using high volume toner carts, another $100, or so, if using regular volume carts. Anyhow, the Brother unit comes w/ 32MB RAM, and one empty RAM slot, which will take up to an add'l 512MB of PC133 SODIMM RAM, to "increase performance" in all areas that rely on RAM based operations..., so, haw much RAM is enough?

I have three 128MB sticks laying around, so adding a 128MB stick is a zero cost option. I used for clients, or gave away a few 256's, and have a half dozen 512's, all currently in use in our laptops. If I still had a 256 laying around, I'd either use it, or swap it for a 512 out of a laptop, but swapping a 128 for a 512 seems too draconian. The pdf I downloaded from Brother talks about "increased performance", but doesn't give any stats, so what I'm asking here, is does anyone know the real world point of diminishing returns in adding RAM to one of these Brother MFC's?

If I just use a 128 for now (after it gets here), I suspect I'll be getting rid of one or two laptops by early summer, and reclaim a 512 at that time, which is what I'm inclined to do, unless someone can show me that adding 256 or 512 will give soooo much more performance that it justifies looking for a more-memory solution sooner. I'm really most concerned about the RAM as to scanning performance, the other functions are less critical. Thanks,

Buzz
==

[jdc]

just try some tests?

scan when you first get it with the 32 megs, then scan after you get the 128 put in?

if you are scanning directly to photoshop, i would be surprised if it did anything -- and you arent scanning 150 meg+ files, right?

but if you print some complex documents, it will help out a ton

[Buzz]

scanning is mostly general text documents, and business forms. some will have to be OCR'ed, which may be better left to the network's G5, and there are occasionally many legal size documents that require hand feeding. the bulk of scanning related activity is to get paper files available as pdf, and reducing that processing time is helpful, which is what I'm looking for real-world comments and input on. printing is rarely time sensitive, and when bigger print runs are involved, it's easier, and effectively cheaper to outsource it once it's pdf'ed. thanks.

[Silencio]

I recall the MFC-8840DN I bought for a client two years ago had a really funny memory expansion slot. The DIMMs were bigger than an SODIMM but smaller than a regular DIMM. You could either buy the module for a crazy price from Brother direct, or through the one third party vendor that sold it -- I believe it was Buffalo/TechWorks. It didn't make a huge difference for us, but we were struggling with the BRScript interpreter's quirks at the time. After switching to the CUPS drivers, no more problems.

Hopefully, Brother switched to a regular DIMM or SODIMM form factor in the meantime...

[jdc]

real world comments are this: no stand alone scanner in the world has ram, so it goes to figure that adding ram to your machine will have zero affects to scanning

[Buzz]

Silencio- from the Brother pdf;

In general, the DIMM must have the following
specifications:
Type: 144 pin and 64 bit output
CAS latency: 2
Clock frequency: 100 MHz or more
Capacity: 64, 128, 256 or 512 MB
Height: 1.25 in. (31.75 mm)
Dram Type: SDRAM 2 Bank
SDRAM can be used.

and the part #'s provided, are as you say, Buffalo or Techworks;
You can install the following DIMM:
• 128 MB Buffalo Technology
VN133-D128 / VN133-X128
• 256 MB Buffalo Technology
VN133-D256
• 512 MB Buffalo Technology
VN133-D512
• 64 MB TechWorks 12165-0004
• 128 MB TechWorks 12462-0001
• 256 MB TechWorks 12485-0001
• 512 MB TechWorks 12475-0001

which google out to be 144 pin SO-DIMM's, such as found at OWC;



so it appears Brother has (thankfully) switched form factors...
/ / /

jdc- the manual available online only refers to chapters 8 & 10 "in the Software User’s Guide on the CD-ROM..." for Mac scanning, but I was under the impression that it scanned to pdf on its own, which I was assuming would/could possibly be RAM dependent. guess I gotta wait till the unit is delivered to get my hands on the CD, or maybe call Brother's customer service. thanks in the mean time.