“How much memory do you have?”
I can’t think of the number of times I’ve gotten a blank stare or stunned silence when I ask that question.
Only two kinds of memory in this world…
It boils down to this:
- Volatile memory – whatever is in the memory is assumed to go away when you pull the power plug. It takes very little power to keep the contents alive, but it takes some. When you turn off your computer, the stuff that was loaded when you booted, any of the programs you ran, and any documents you opened, are gone. This is often referred to as RAM (random access memory).
- Non-volatile memory – hard disks, floppy disks (remember those?), CDs, DVDs, Bluray disks, thumb drives, Compact Flash/SD/XD/Memory Stick – these are all non-volatile memory. This is where your documents go when you put them on the desktop, it’s where your programs are stored, and it’s where your computer’s operating system is stored.
Chips, Flash, Disks
- RAM memory and Flash cards/thumb drives are made of computer chips. They are solid state with no moving parts.
- A hard drive is motorized, spinning disk.
- There is a third sort of hybrid – a Solid State Drive (or SSD) is actually a whole bunch of flash memory packaged up in a way that it can be connected to a computer, and looks to the computer like any other hard drive, except that it can be wicked fast.
RAM and Flash memory are expensive, hard drives are cheap. Bang for buck, hard drives are an awesome deal. In smart phones and tablets, everything is stored in some kind of solid state memory, rather than on a hard drive. That’s why a 32Gig phone costs $100 more than a 16Gig phone.
Hungry? Let’s step out for a byte…
| byte | a single text character |
| kilobyte (K or KB) | 1024 characters (I think of it as a thousand) |
| megabyte (M or MB) | 1024 x 1024 characters (I think think of it as a million) |
| gigabyte (G or GB) | 1024 x 1024 x 1024 characters (I think of it as a gazillion) |
| terabyte (T or TB) | 1024 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 characters (I think of it as a trazillion) |
| CD | 70-80 minutes, 650-700MB |
| DVD | 4.7GB (single-layer), 9.4GB (dual-layer) |
| Bluray | 25GB (single-layer), 50GB (dual-layer |
| Hard drive | It is difficult to find a new hard drive for sale today that is less than 1 TB, and they are starting at a little over $50. A 3TB drive internal drive at Walmart (as of today) is $99.99. |
| Thumb drive | The smallest thumb drive available at Walmart today is an 8GB drive for $4.32. A 128Gb drive can be had for $32. Do I sound amazed yet? |
| Flash memory | These are the cards typically found in cameras, audio recorders, and such. Some types are CompactFlash, SD, SDHC, SDXC, Micro SD,Memory Stick, XD. CompactFlash is the most rugged, and thus a bit more expensive. A 2GB CompactFlash card is $11.99 today. A 128GB card is $403. SD cards are cheaper – 32GB for $20.59, 128GB for $51.30. CompactFlash cards are used in today’s video cameras. |
I hope that clears up at least a bit of confusion.
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