On a computer what is the difference between memory and storage?

Answer 1

I am guessing you are meaning the difference between RAM and Memory...becuase memory is storage.

Think of your hard drive as a giant library. The total capacity of books that the library can hold is your memory.

Now, consider you are going to do some work while at the library, and you need to look through several books to do the work. Therefore, you hold some books in your arms so that they are readily available all the time and you can access them quickly. You can always access all the books, but obviously the one's in your hand are easier and quicker to access. This is RAM. Ram essentially keeps programs running behind the scenes but they load and run much quicker since you use them often. So if you don't have much RAM, you won't be able to load many things at once.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Usually, "memory" refers to what is called RAM; and "storage" refers to hard disk space.

(Although, to be completely accurate, RAM is also storage, but that is a digression).

1. RAM is used by computer applications to **temporarily** hold information that must be accessed very, very quickly. For instance, when you open Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer at the same time, they each commandeer a certain amount of RAM to hold pieces of information.

As a primitive example, Word will hold every paragraph of text in the document you have opened. That way, when you scroll up and down the document, Word doesn't constantly load the file again and again ... it's already being held in the very fast RAM "memory".

When you turn off your computer, everything in RAM is lost.

2. Hard Disk space is used to hold actual files (the Word document you typed). It is stored there until you purposely delete it. So your music, your photos, your programs, your games are all stored on the Hard Disk.

When you open a document in Microsoft Word, it is first loaded off the hard drive; then placed in the fast "memory" (RAM). When you close Microsoft Word, the document is again saved to the hard drive, and no longer stored in the fast memory. That memory space is freed up for other programs to use.


Generally speaking, adding RAM ("memory") will make your computer faster -- particularly the more programs you run at once.

This is because each program requires a bunch of "memory" and if you run out, then the computer performs a bit of a trick -- it asks the hard disk to pretend to be memory. However, the hard disk is much slower, so in turn your computer runs slower.

Adding "storage" (hard disk space), on the other hand, increases the amount of music, photos, videos, games that you can have stored on your computer.

Answer 3

Well on a typical PC Storage refers available space on the hard drive where data is store prenatally ( stays even if you turn off the computer).

Memory is stored in RAM, which stores information temporarily and is completely cleared when the computer is turned off.


The best analogy to understand the difference is Storage is like your long term memory, it's information your computer has access to but isn't using at the moment.

Memory is like what's on your mind right now. The information your computer needs to accomplish the task(s) it's doing at the moment.

Answer 4

lets see we can broadly classify memory as random-access memory (RAM) or read-only memory (ROM, with RAM being the most predominant. Technically, both RAM and ROM are random access, (Random access is the ability of a computer to locate and retrieve data immediately, without having to start at the beginning and read all the data until it finds the appropriate information.) This is why it might be more accurate to call RAM read/write memory. Because of the potential confusion, manufacturers are now using the terms volatile storage for RAM and nonvolatile storage for ROM.

Answer 5

Storage is usually the hard drive capacity this memory retains its data when the computer is turned off.
Memory is the Ram memory you have that the programs use to run in looses it data when the computer is turned off.

Answer 6

Memory is what the computer uses to preform a variety of functions, it temporarily stores info the you may have cut out of a document. Storage is the area that keeps a record of what you have developed and saved. It is the hard drive, a jump drive, a CD ROM, and allows you to retrieve that information when you desire.
Al

Answer 7

more memory allows programs and tasks to be run more easily. storage is for keeping files and programs stored. put it this way, a business works better with more employees. consider employees "memory," if you had only 2 employees, that business can do only so much in a given time period. now with an added 5 employees, all of them combined can get many things accomplished in that same time period. this is how memory works. storage, you can refer to as storage cabinets or file cabinets. they are limited in size but you can place whatever info you have in them, you can add, remove or even rename these files at your convenience. if you run out of room then you can get another cabinet similar in size to expand your storage, or you can get an even bigger cabinet that can hold more fiels than the other one could.

Answer 8

Storage is how much information your computer can hold.
Memory is how much information your computer can deal with at one time.
What gets confusing is virtual memory, which is basically using storage (hard drive) as memory (RAM).

Answer 9

Memory is used to access your storage.

Your processor is very fast and your hard drive (storage) is realatively slow.

Memory is used as a buffer to ..feed the processor as to not be lagging by the slower hard drive.

OK Good

Answer 10

memory is RAM. ram is random access memory. its temporary and only there when the computer is turned on.

storage is all of your programs and data. like microsoft xp, office and your documents and pictures, they are stored on the hard drive. which is normall around 4o gigabytes or more on today's computers.

the hard drive holds the data even when the computer is off. you can erase the data stored there but unless you do it, its still there with no power.

RAM, memory, is normally a green plate with silicon chips on it.
a hard drive is a metal housing with usually 16 platters inside.