Hard drives & Memory (internal)

The hard drive is a large storage area for simi-permanent data. By simi-permanent I mean that it is there until it is either deleted by the user, formated, or corrupted beyond repair. Software is stored on this device including the OS (operating system) and any other programs the user has installed. Typical hard drives have spinning disks or platters inside on which data is written. A barely emerging type of hard drive called a solid-state hard drive has no spinning disks or moving parts, and is basically a large capacity flash drive. Solid state hard drives are ideal for laptops due to durability and low power usage. There are two main ways drives are connected to the motherboard: IDE and SATA. IDE is an older connection but is very widely used. SATA is built into most new computers and provides much faster data transfers. Here is a comparison picture of the two types of drive connections. Here is a close-up of an SATA connection and its power connection.

Memory or RAM (random access memory) is NOT the same as a hard drive. Please do not mix the two up. Many people I talk to confuse memory (RAM) with hard drives and vice versa. There is a big difference between the two of them. Hard drives are large capacity storage devices used to hold software, documents, and other simi-permanent data. Memory (RAM) is only a TEMPORARY storage area for data that the processor constantly uses for operations. As soon as the processor no longer needs that information or if the computer is turned off the memory is erased. The memory (RAM) is there so that the hard drive is not being constantly searched for things that are always needed. Desktop memory looks similar but is not quite as compact as laptop memory.