On a smartphone, when you’re using up a large portion of your RAM, the expandable virtual RAM feature will send the temporary files to this reserved internal storage space. This frees up more space in your actual physical RAM to load up more apps. When you want to switch back to the older apps, the phone will bring those temporary files from your internal storage back to the RAM, allowing you to use those apps again.
Is Expandable Virtual RAM as good as more physical RAM?
No, performance-wise, actual physical RAM storage will always be faster and more reliable. This is because RAM speeds are much faster than internal storage speeds, even beating the speeds of UFS 3.1, one of the fastest internal storage options we can get on phones today.
When we use expandable virtual RAM, there is a lot of data being transferred from the RAM to the internal storage and back. This process is also happening at speeds slower than that of transfers happening entirely inside the RAM module since the comparatively slower internal storage is involved.
Advantages: The cost factor is the biggest plus point of virtual RAM-enabled phones because you will get more performance out of them without paying for extra physical RAM since expandable virtual RAM is a software feature, not a hardware component.
A 6GB+2GB (Virtual) phone will not perform on equal terms to a phone with 8GB RAM, but it should be cheaper than it, provided other aspects like the brand and other specifications remain constant. Phones with the feature will also offer better RAM management than phones with the same amount of RAM, but without the feature.
Disadvantages: Since expandable virtual memory is a software feature that substitutes empty internal storage for temporary RAM use, it will only work when you have surplus internal storage space to spare in the first place. If your phone is already nearing its total internal storage capacity, there is no extra space to be allocated to extra RAM and your phone will simply use the amount of dedicated RAM that it does have.

Expandable virtual RAM being a software feature also means you will not be able to make use of the feature if you use a third-party custom ROM on your phone in the future instead of the official firmware. Unless the custom ROM has a similar implementation you will again be stuck with the dedicated RAM that you have.

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