A system and method for reducing memory usage is disclosed. The system and method include populating a first container with original data. The first container has a tree-based data structure that includes a plurality of nodes and a plurality of pointers. A block of memory is allocated to a second container that has an array-based data structure. The original data is copied from the first container to the second container. The original data, the plurality of nodes, and the plurality of pointers may be deleted from the first container.