Memory (RAM) Vs. Memory (HDD Space)

I’m like you, but I just let it go when people say stuff like that. I’ve been doing it for so long I’ve moved past it.

There’s also, “What kind of processor do you have?” “Dell!”
“Just bring me the box part.” “The CPU?”
“What kind of video card do you have?” “I have a monitor…”

I work in retail, and deal with the same thing all the time.

If the customer wants me to explain the difference in a way they can understand I’ll put it like this:

“Think of memory as a desk, the larger the desk, the more papers you can fit on it facing up at a time, but can only have so much out at once, because the desk has only so much room. And think of your hard drive as a filing cabinet, it’s going to store all those documents that you’re using now, and the ones you’ve used before. The more memory (ram) you have (or desk space), the more you can have open at a time, and the larger the hard drive (storage) you have, the more you can store permanently on your computer.”

But yeah I know what you mean… I also hear a lot about those UBS cables, and customers confusing MB with GB a lot. I’ve stopped correcting them, I’ll just refer to it in the correct way later in our conversation, and if they ask questions, I’ll explain to them what each one means.

the main problem here is that this is my teacher is spreading this misinformation, and he doesn’t understand it, he has merely adopted my terminology and makes a slight about it (directed at me) every time he uses the substitute reference.

@patg7590 You’re right, of course, and I think anyone who is truly computer literate thinks the way you do. What class is this professor teaching? If it’s comp sci then it’s a serious problem. I like @RandomMrdan‘s analogy, but if he’s an old school computer guy who doesn’t seem to get it, tell him the HDD is like tapes or punch cards.

I think “storage” is the correct term for HDD, btw.

haha, that’s kind of funny, but I wouldn’t act any different if a teacher made it obvious each time they used the correct term and looked at me like that.

At least he knows now the correct terminology…though will probably forget and later come to see me at my place of work and use it improperly only to be corrected again, haha.

@gussnarp the class is Print Production Methods. and thanks for storage I was reaching for that term and couldn’t grasp it for some reason. but it sure isn’t memory. :]

I actually used to call the hard drive space on computers “memory” when I was younger, but then I got into the computing field and have learned my lesson. Now, I see myself correcting many people on this. I think that it may soon go away as people learn more about basic computing as the years go by.

I had a professor once who was really smart, really knew her stuff, but had never come across the word “incipient” before until she read it in a book that was core to some of her lecture material. Unfortunately she took the completely wrong meaning of “incipient” from the context. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite of the real meaning. I never had the heart to correct her, but one of my classmates did. I’m sure she never forgot it.

RAM to me is the memory stick, and that is the actual memory. HDD space used as memory is called virtual memory, and I have yet to get anyone to understand that keeping your hard drive at least 50% open helps the machine run better when there is space for the CPU to put virtual memory on the HDD.

At least that is how I understand it.

50% of your hard drive space is a bit excessive for virtual memory. Especially if you have a 1TB hard drive. Usually it goes by the amount of RAM you have. In theory, though, if you had lots and lots of RAM you wouldn’t need virtual memory.

The only case in which you should use a lot of HDD capacity for virtual memory is if you have multiple HDDs.
If you’ve just got one and have a significant chunk of it being utilized for virtual memory, then you’re going to notice it acting a lot more sluggishly for tasks you need it to do, once it’s under some stress.

@mrentropy who in the hell needs 1TB of HDD space? What are you, NASA? I am running XP and the ‘sweet spot’ for RAM is 1 Gig. More memory isn’t going to do you any good.

1GB of memory is not nearly enough if you deal with recent computer games and/or graphical editing. I can’t really argue in favor of a terabyte though, unless you’re an adamant collector of high def videos.

@evelyns_pet_zebra I have 1TB of internal hard drive space, and I have a 1.5TB external drive as well. Not to mention my Macbook Pro has a 500GB hard drive, with a 500GB external.

I archive movies, tv shows, music, photos, and all sorts of other stuff.

@evelyns_pet_zebra I really could use 1TB of storage. And, as @Sarcasm says, 1 GB of RAM isn’t nearly enough. If you have a lot of games on the computer and a total of six people using one computer you’d be surprised at how quickly free hard drive space goes away.

Also, being an “old school” computer user I think it’s damn nifty being able to buy a 1TB drive for much, much, less than I paid for my first 10MB hard drive. In either case, I don’t have a 1TB drive.

I do, however, have a quad-core processor, 2 500GB hard drives, and 8GB of RAM. I also use a 64-bit Linux that sees it all. Overkill? Sure, today… But tomorrow it’ll be quite obsolete.

Gosh, I remember when storage was a 5¼ floppy disk at, gosh I don’t remember, 500K? And for backup we had a tape drive. I don’t even know what RAM was, 64K? We had a 2400 Baud modem too. Now I’m running 2 gigs of RAM and that’s really the bare minimum you should have, and won’t last much longer. I’ve still got a 20 gig hard drive though, but I’ve got a portable 500 gig. At work though I run a 500 gig hard drive with a 1TB external. Things change so fast.

I’ll say. My first computer was a 3.5K VIC-20 with a tape drive. Then I upgraded to an 8K Atari 400 with a tape drive.

I feel the same way. Usually the people I deal with get confused by that and also confuse RAM with the processor speed. I say out of the two memory numbers which one is bigger and which number has a ghz at the end.

@patg7590 I’m dizzy from the time warp in here
lol

Memory is RAM. HD is storage. Any other way of phrasing it is wrong. I also hate people that never use “whom” and who misspell their “there/their/they’re“s. I’ve learned to live with myself despite all this hatred through therapy and strong drink.

@charhalCDW Come on, everybody gets there theirs wrong once in a while. Nobody’s perfect, their bound to make a mistake in they’re sometimes.

@gussnarp well played

I would have to agree that the general terminology is that RAM is generally considered memory, and your HDD is generally considered storage. However, in the past both have had their terms used interchangeably. You might have heard to them being referred to primary and secondary storage, or primary and secondary memory.

Reference: Google Search: Secondary Memory

I see what you did there >-<