Adding memory to Toshiba p70-a laptop--best configurations

[mookie8285]

My wife has a 18 month old customized Toshiba P70-A laptop that came with 6 gb of ram. We probably should have gotten it with at least 8 or more gb but didn't. Since Photoshop Elements and Organizer along with many browser windows seem to bring it's memory usage up pretty high and makes things go slowly, I am considering buying 2-4 or perhaps more gbs of ram The factory installed memory is not directly accessible and CPU-Z indicates that there is 2gb on slot 2 and 4gb on slot 4. The two accessible slots are empty. They take DDR3L 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800).Originals are by Samsung. What would be the best denominations of memory to add, especially regarding using dual channel? Do I need to add 6gb and replicate 4 + 2? If adding 4gb do I do 2+2 or just one 4gb in one slot? Can I add just 2gb to one slot? Also, do I need to get Samsung memory or can I use other brands with same specs?

 

[Karsten75]

I really hate that vendors even sell 2+4GB memory configurations, especially if it's not accessible by the end-user.

You are probably best off trying to match it, but the performance hit of single-channel vs dual-channel will not be so severe as to impact the benefit from relieving the memory constraint.

Memory is fickle - if at all possible try to match the new memory as closely as possible to the old memory (part numbers, etc.) to maximize your chances of compatibility.