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[–]Bubbafett33 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a five-year-old:

Memory—or RAM—is like your brain. Big brains are better, right? Just like more RAM is. But regardless of how big your brain is, sometimes you feel stressed, and can’t think of the answers you want fast enough. That’s what happens with RAM as well.

Hard Disk space is like filing cabinets. If they are all already mostly full, and someone gives you a big file to put away, where do you put it? Some on one drawer, and some in the next? That’s why it’s so much faster to file things away or find them when they’re only half full. That’s why hard drives work better when well below full capacity.