What is RAM, What is a Hard Drive: A Plain English Explanation

When it comes to a computer, there are so many computer terms like RAM, megahertz, gigabytes, etc. that people can find confusing. Having a better understanding of some of these terms can help you feel more comfortable using your computer, and ultimately get more out of it.

A lot of people I talk to seem to be apologetic about their lack of knowledge. It's too bad people feel that way; they really shouldn't. What I tell them is that while they may not know as much as I do about computers, there's nothing wrong with that, and they probably know a lot of other things I don't know much about.

All you need is someone who takes the time to explain things to you in a way that makes sense.

One term many people confuse is memory or RAM, and hard drive storage space. RAM stands for Random Access Memory (don't worry, you don't need to remember that!).

It is a temporary working space the computer uses to get work done, which gets emptied when the computer is turned off.

Think of it like a work bench or table. You have a project you're working on and you do your project on the bench and when you're done, you clear it off.

The hard drive is the main place your computer uses to store information. It looks like a rectangular metal box which contains a non-removable disk (as opposed to something like a CD Drive where you can take the disk out).

It is the disk inside the drive which stores everything on your computer -- every picture, every music file, every email, and every Word document. Not only that, but Windows or Mac OS X, the operating system that makes the computer run.

To continue our analogy, think of it as a set of shelves where you store the tools or materials for your project -- when you want to work on something you choose the things you need from the shelves, put them on the bench and work on the project.

This is like when you run a program; the computer loads the program from the hard drive into memory (the temporary working space).

So the larger the shelves, the more you can store -- i.e. the more programs you can have installed, the more songs or pictures or videos you can save on your computer.

Most people with a computer made in the last few years have far larger hard drives than they'll ever use. Few people ever fill them up, unless they are keeping a lot of large files such as sound files or pictures, or especially video files.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's true, video is worth at least a million words, and the files can be that much bigger!

If someone tells you you need more memory, or your computer gives you an error message about being low on memory, this usually means you don't have enough RAM. This can slow your computer down drastically.

Think of the bench idea again: if your bench is very small, you can't fit everything you need on it to get your work done, so you're constantly wasting time moving one piece of the project off the bench to make room for the next piece... if you can really work at all.

Both RAM and hard drive space are measured with the same terms: bytes, kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), with newer drives even being measured in terabytes (TB). Since both RAM and hard drives are measured in the same way, this may be one reason people confuse the two terms.

You don't need to understand exactly what those terms mean, but understand that each one is basically a thousand times larger than the one before. So a kilobyte is 1,000 times larger than a byte, a megabyte is 1,000 times larger than a kilobyte, a gigabyte is a thousand times later than that, and so on.

The reason you buy a computer one year that has a lot of RAM, and two or three years go by and suddenly someone tells you you don't have enough memory, is because each year the average size of programs, and the amount of memory they need, gets larger.

It's as if the tools you use on your workbench keep growing every year so you eventually have to get a larger bench.

If your computer seems to be running more slowly recently, or you've been having odd errors, it could be that you need to upgrade your memory. This isn't always the source of these problems, but RAM is very inexpensive these days and adding to what your computer has can add life to your Mac or PC.

Hopefully this clears up the meaning of these basic computer terms for you, and made a lot more sense than it used to! To learn more about RAM and memory, read this related article that explains how RAM affects the speed of a computer, and more.

Computer Maintenance Tips To Avoid Problems

Computers can develop problems for a variety of reasons, and it can sometimes be hard to isolate the cause.

Problems come in two general types: hardware and software. Hardware refers to a physical part of your computer, including the keyboard, the hard drive, and the motherboard. Software refers to programs and documents stored on your computer, including the operating system (such as Windows or the Mac OS), Microsoft Word documents, images, etc.

Software problems can be caused by a variety of things, including a hard drive that is beginning to fail, power fluctuations that happen while files are being saved, viruses, or from not shutting your computer down properly.

Hardware problems can’t be caused by software; they tend to happen over time, or because of something like power fluctuations, or excessive heat or moisture. It’s essential to protect your machine with a surge suppressor, or better yet, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

A surge suppressor protects your computer and peripherals from a sudden surge in electricity, sometimes caused by an electrical storm, or because of fluctuations in voltage from the power grid.

These power surges can come through either your power or your phone outlets, so if you have your computer connected to the phone line (if you use dial-up internet access for example), any surge suppressor you use should protect both power and phone lines. There are also surge suppressors which protect your cable line instead of the phone line, for those who use cable internet access like Time Warner's RoadRunner.

If you live on the Big Island of Hawaii like I do, you know we experience a lot of brownouts, and even complete blackouts are common in a lot of areas.

While a surge suppressor is a must-have no matter where you live, it's better to use a UPS (which stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply, and has nothing to do with the shipping company) to protect your computer if you live in a place with unstable power like we have here.

A UPS contains both a surge suppressor and a large backup battery that immediately takes over if the power level drops. This protects the computer from the damage done by brownouts and can even keep your computer running for up to 20 minutes if the power goes out completely, allowing you to save your work and shut down safely.

This 20 minutes can make the difference between losing hours, days, or even months of work (if the computer turns off while you're working on a project, you can lose not just what you're working on now, but everything in the file).

If you live near the ocean or in a very humid area, rust and corrosion are a very big problem; keeping your computer in an air conditioned room will help.

Regardless of where you live and whether or not you have a surge suppressor or UPS, you should make regular backups of your important files onto disks that aren't damaged by moisture, such as CDs and DVDs.

Floppy disks and Zip disks, on the other hand, are both made of similar materials to videotapes, all of which can be ruined by mold. If you have important files on floppy or Zip disk, you should look into transferring the files to CD or DVD.

In the mean time, keeping the disks in a sealed tupperware container with desiccant packs (the same stuff that comes in vitamin bottles) can help keep them working longer.

Symptoms of a sick computer can range from occasional crashes or slow operation, to a computer that won’t turn on. The thing is, a hardware problem can start out very minor, but can get worse over time.

A common mistake people make is ignoring or overlooking problems until they get too big to fix — in the case of a bad hard drive, this can mean you can lose all of your files. This is why it’s so crucial to back your files up regularly.

Don't make the mistake so many people do: make a habit of backing up regularly before you lose important files. So many people learn the hard way; I hate having to tell people that all of their many hours of work are completely lost.

I know what it's like to lose files, too -- I'm not just a computer guy, I'm also a writer. Most of my early writing is lost forever because I didn't back up my first computer many years ago (hey, everybody was a rookie once!).

Don't let this happen to you with the valuable pictures, music, letters, emails, schoolwork, customer files, or whatever other irreplaceable files you may have on your computer.

Understanding the Computer Term: A Driver

In this issue of my computer tips newsletter, I'm going to explain a computer term that, like so many computer terms, isn't very well understood by most people. And in many cases, isn't understood at all.

Of course, as always, remember that's not a criticism -- if you didn't understand what a driver was before this, it's just because it was never explained to you the right way before.

Let's see what I can do to fix that.

A driver is a special type of software that's needed to get different pieces of hardware to work right with your computer.

Didn't make sense yet? Bear with me.

First off, just to make sure we're all on the same page, let me briefly explain the difference between the two basic computer terms "hardware" and "software".

It's actually pretty simple -- "hardware" refers to all of the physical pieces of equipment, like your mouse, your computer's screen (or monitor), the hard drive, etc.

"Software" is all of the parts of the computer that you can't really see or touch. Software would include things like Microsoft Word, your email program, Windows or the Mac OS, plus all of your personal files like letters, photos, music, and more.

One way to think about it is like this: hardware is like your brain, the physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts -- the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts "run on" your brain.

Make sense?

Now let's talk more specifically about drivers. Here's the easy way to think about the computer term driver:

Imagine that every piece of hardware, including your printer, your mouse, and so on, speaks a different language. So one speaks French, another one speaks Italian, another one Cantonese, and so on.

So when you plug in a new printer and turns it on, your computer says "hi" and the printer answers in a foreign language the computer doesn't understand.

So it needs an interpreter.

And when I say interpreter, I mean just like in the real world, like if a foreign diplomat comes to the country but doesn't speak the local language. They need an interpreter to help them communicate with the locals.

That, basically speaking, is what a driver is -- an interpreter that helps your computer talk to a specific piece of equipment. And you need a different interpreter for each piece of equipment (or each general type) that you hook up to the computer.

Make sense?

Now in some cases, the driver may be "preinstalled" on your computer (in other words, the computer already has the interpreter ready and waiting in case it's needed) and in other cases, it needs to either be installed from a CD, or downloaded off the Internet, and then installed on the computer.

But either way, the computer needs that driver before it can talk to the printer or whatever other type of device you may have hooked up to the computer.

Hope that makes sense.

Until next time, enjoy,

Worth Godwin