Desktop and Filing Cabinet

• Your computer uses memory to get things done, just like you do if you work in an office. In an office, there is a desk with a nice big top where you can lay out files and records for whatever business you do. There's a filing cabinet where those files are stored when you're not working on them. Your computer uses memory like a desktop and your hard drive like a filing cabinet.
  
  

Processing Data

• If you, in your office, need to pull out the file on Jones Brothers from the filing cabinet to process a sale, that might take some time to look up. You then might have to pull the file on the product you are going to sell. You take both of these to your desk and reference one to the other, making the notations required to process the sale. In your computer, memory is the desktop where the information on Jones Brothers and the product are kept while the CPU makes the calculations on both.
  
  

Bigger is Better

• Running back and forth to the filling cabinet for every file is slow and inefficient. If you are doing a lot of work on certain files, it may be faster if you keep them on your desk. Now imagine that your desk turns into a big conference table; think of how many files you could fit on it. Memory works the same way here too. More memory is like a bigger desk where more information can be kept and less time is wasted running back and forth to the hard drive.
  
  

Software Limits

• While we think of more memory always being better, there are actually limits to how much memory helps. All operating systems have limits to the amount of memory they will recognize. Beyond that point, adding memory is useless. It is good to investigate the individual need of your operating system so you fulfill its requirements and keep it running smoothly.
  
  

Hardware Limits

• Some hardware requires memory, and some will limit memory. There are motherboards that use main memory not only for quick information retrieval, but for video processing also. If you have one of these, you will want more memory to make up for the memory shared with video. Every motherboard also has an upper limit to the amount of memory you can install.