> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://xavier-geerinck.gitbook.io/algorithms/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://xavier-geerinck.gitbook.io/algorithms/data-structures/external-data-structures.md).

# External Data Structures

What happens when we got algorithms that require a size that is bigger then our internal RAM? Well this is where External Datastructures provide a solution. These datastructures utilize the external medium such as hard disks to write data to. The biggest problem that arises here is that writing to a disk is a lot slower than writing to the RAM memory.