A memory object or data space can be used as a large contiguous area of virtual storage for sorting records. The benefit of using central storage in this way is twofold:

• Due to the potentially large size of a memory object or data space, this type of sorting enables a greater percentage of sort jobs to be processed completely within main storage, without the need to write intermediate data to disk work space. This can reduce CPU and elapsed times, as well as EXCP counts and channel usage.
• If an in-main-storage sort is not possible, memory object or dataspace sorting usually picks the optimal amount of virtual storage for memory object or data space. This is frequently larger than the default amount of main storage and enables DFSORT to sort larger amounts of data at a time before writing them to the work data sets. This often provides a savings in elapsed time, I/O activity, and CPU time.