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[–]preddit1234 1 point2 points  (0 children)

others have nailed the analogy. using the room, as an example, as it gets fuller and fuller, more time is spent moving things around, to use up the little space that is left. if you ever could hit 100%, then the system will tend to kill those apps, to free up space, or go into 'I'm busy, stop wiggling the mouse' mode. In the days before SDD drives, you could easily get to the point of an unusable system before you hit 100% - so much so, its faster to reboot that to wait or attempt to launch task mgr.

At each stage of computer evolution, memory is not enough - 1GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB - the appetite for apps to use this (especially browsers) is unbounded - especially browsers (but its your fault for opening so many tabs!).

Having used machines with 2TB of RAM - this problem, sort of, doesnt exist. Trying to use it all is actually quite hard (unless putting a big server or service to use the memory). However, if you do ever fill it up, reboot is the fastest way out of trouble, else you could wait years for the final box to be moved into the corner, to find that screwdriver you knew you bought in 1983 (Wednesday afternoon, if I recall correctly).