whats LR doing tht time?

yeah as standby is cached data, you're maxing out your ram and your system will be using your slower ssd/hdd to compensate.

that depends very much how much time you spend using lightroom.

if you do this once a week does it really matter if you wait that much longer?
on the contrary, if you use it daily and for business and this is restricting the amount of work you can finish and therefore the money you make, do upgrade for sure.

btw.. for me, lightroom maxes out at 22-25GB.