Quote:
Originally posted by kach22i
Not to hi-jack the thread, but I've been having a low memory problem too.
I have maybe 90% of the "D" drive available and over half, maybe 75% of the main "C" drive available, yet low memory.
What's the difference between available hard disk space and "memory"?
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In a nutshell....
Disk Space is primarily used for storage.
System RAM or Random Access Memory is a solid state work area used by the CPU to perform calculations and other machine operations. It is also "volatile" and when powered down all contents are lost.
When memory is overburdened by the CPU an area of the disk drive is used to handle the spill over. The problem is that the pipeline to the disk and it's mechanical operation are much slower than solid state memory. Therefore more memory is better as it prevents the need to utilize the disk drive.
Modern CPUs also have a built-in work area called cache (it is, however, specific to certain operations). This performs better than RAM as it is directly accessed by the CPU. Why? Because the pipeline to cache is more direct and efficient than the pipe to RAM.