I am planning a project that will consist of numerous, time series, table field calculations using one or more tables. In planning for the project, I want to maximize calculation/computation speed (in DOS, I used a “virtual RAM drive”, copied my clipper tables and programs to the drive, did computations in RAM, then wrote results back to the C: drive).
In VFP
Is it better to use table buffering by increasing buffering with:

SYS(3050,1,16000000)&& sets foregnd buffering to 16mb,
SYS(3050,2,16000000) && sets backgnd buffer to 16mb and then use
The tableupdate: =CURSORSETPROP("Buffering",5) function

OR

Is it better to copy each table to an Array with the Copy to Array command,
make up an index system which references the table fields numerically,
do the required calculations in RAM,
then fill a table with the Append from Array command?