Its allways the same, either you have time or you have space. You need less time if you have more space, as its with rainbow tables. Still in my book a table is still something that was precalculated and does no calculation whatsoever.
So let's say you have a machine that has two wheels that can each be set for a number from zero to ten. You push a button, and an LED display lights up with the sum of those two numbers. Do you have to look inside the machine to tell if it's calculating or not?