The Difference between Memory and Disk Space – Part One
Almost all people who always involving using computer is probably have heard “Memory” and “Disk Space”, but it is difficult to believe that all those ones know exactly about these two things include the difference between them as we are often see many mistakenly use the two terms interchangeably as when they had the same meaning. However, though they are related, but the difference between them is vast enough to tell that they can not be used as one term. Think of “Memory” and “Disk Space” as the difference between your short term and long term memory. Today you meet John and then you forget his name in the evening. But, next week, you may be able to recall the detail of the meeting between you and John if asked to do so. The same is happen in the Memory.
The full of word “Memory” is “Random Access Memory” that we are often call “RAM”. RAM is known as a volatile or temporary memory type that can be lost and often is. RAM or Memory can be used to keep new information like your short term memory does. Whenever something new demands your attention, the previous information will be transferred from your short term memory to the long term memory vault.
This is the equivalent of saving a document before closing it in term of computer. When you save the document, contents of document are transferred from RAM (computer’s temporary memory) to the hard disk (computer’s long term memory) and the contents of the document are lost when the process is interrupted whether by user’s cancellation, power failure, or any other such scenarios. It is similar to what happens as we sort out important, save-worthy information from our short term to long term memories. We will not remember that we see five butterflies caught on the flower, but we will remember that today we are supposed to go to the groceries if we want to eat tonight.
Disk Space is a space on computer’s hard drive where the applications you use on your computer are stored. When you run a program, the program is loaded from the disk first into the computer’s Memory (RAM). Then, the program instructions are executed from RAM. RAM is only one place where allow any program can be executed that why after a program is loaded from the computer’s disk, it will need to transfer into RAM in order to process instructions. Furthermore, RAM is also used when we create documents and image or other files.
However, RAM is volatile memory. The contents of RAM get wiped out when you turn off the computer or if there is a power failure. And if the information is deleted in RAM, it will not be saved and the existence of that information will not be recorded by the computer. This is why it is very easy to lose open documents during a computer runtime error. Also, during a sudden loss of power, the documents currently in RAM are not saved.
To be continued…
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