How much computer memory do you need?

Reason: File system cache.

In modern Linux and Windows operating systems every file you read off the hard drive is stored in memory and only re-read after it has been write invalidated. This can reduce the amount of disk related seeks greatly in a mostly read based workload.

For your average home user between 6 and 8GB are pretty standard amount and will give good performance.

For power users and gamers between 16 and 32GB should be considered.

The Linux version (complete with sorting office analogy).