Quite a while ago, I upgraded the memory in the Paris server. I was thinking that it wasn't exactly needed because the memory monitor still showed that there was at least 100 MB of the memory available.
The Paris server was built with a 1 GB memory stick for later expansion if needed. I installed another 1 GB memory stick on the server, and to my surprise, there is now only about 300 MB of free memory after the server is on for at least 24 hours.
So, out of 2 GB of memory that was installed, it is using 1.7 GB of it. How did it survive with only 1 GB installed? I guess it was using the swap file (virtual memory) on the server more than it was reporting. Or maybe now that more memory is available, the server is taking advantage of storing more data for quicker retrieval.
RAM operates in nanoseconds (ns) for access times. Hard drives also operate in nanoseconds as well. However, memory access times are much faster than hard drive performance. Therefore, this memory upgrade improved system performance all around.
Josh with Midwest First also installed more memory in his web server. He only had 256 MB starting out and added more. His website loading times reduced dramatically.