what is the difference between physical memory and virtual memory on a computer and what is a partitioned driv

Answer 1

Physical memory is your RAM, or Random Access Memory. It is contained on the memory cards that are plugged into your motherboard.

Virtual memory is a small section of your hard drive that Windows reserves to use as memory if and when your "Physical" memory is full.

A "Partition" is a section of a hard drive that is separate from the primary partition and is looked at by Windows as an actual separate hard drive. Imagine A circle that has been cut into sections. Each of these sections would be called a "Partition". You can create partitions when you install XP, or you can use third party software. Partition Magic is one of the best. But most folks do not require more then one partition.

Hope this answers your question.

Answer 2

Physical memory is the actual sticks of RAM mounted on the motherboard. Virtual memory (called a swap file) is a space on the disk where the OS puts data it cannot hold in physical memory but may need again soon. If you add more RAM you'll notice the harddrive is not thrashing as much. Partitions make the OS think that one physical drive is multiple drives (basically) So if you partition (most manufatures do) you have many drives under My Computer but only one real drive mounted in the case.

Answer 3

Howdy!
As you can see in the other answers, the physical memory is the memory that you can actually touch. The Virtual memory is a section of your hard drive used to swap memory requests in and out when the physical memory gets full.

Another way to look at it is... Physical memory is like the top of your desk. You take out your work and spread it out to work with it. The more desk you have (physical memory) the more you can have out (open) at one time. When you get too much out (or open) you have to take some off of your desk and put it back in a folder till you are ready to use it (virtual memory). What is on your desk is quicker to get to (physical memory is faster). It takes time and resources to access the files in virtual memory so the more physical memory you have the faster your PC will operate.
As for partioned drives... a partition is a section of a physical drive. It is a drive that is split into two or more sections. Again, compare it to a filling cabinet. if you have just one big drawer full of folders, things can get a little clutered. However, splitting them into sections can cause them to fill up faster. I prefer to have one large drive and sort things into my own folders.
I hope this helps.

Tom

Answer 4

the SDRAM u use in the computer is called the physical memory. as it is limited the OS will create an extention of this memory in the harddisk but will be accessed as though it was a SDRAM memory. This is called virtual memory

a harddisk can be divided into several partitions[ max 4 primary partitions and unlimited number of logical partitions]
the D:,E: drives u see in explorer are such drives

Answer 5

Physical memory is the actual ammount of RAM on your computer. Virtual memory is a small portion of the hard drive that's used for the same purpose, when you run out of RAM available for use.

Answer 6

physical memory is memory that is really there,such as the amount of ram that you have on DDR2 chips(or whatever kind ) virtual mem. is using your hard drive as extra ram when you run out of available physical mem.
hard drive partition is a section of your HD that has been set aside in such a way that your computer thinks it has two HD's