Storage is not memory

Really important. Really, really important. It’s not one of those “oh, some people say PIN number, which is daft because the N already stands for number” things that are ultimately inconsequential. If you get this wrong, it will matter to you if you ever want to know why your device is running slowly.

Storage is not memory. Storage, not memory, is where your apps, files and photos are stored. That is storage. If you knew that already, great. If you didn’t know that, don’t beat yourself up but equally, don’t just say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” and carry on misunderstanding.

So what is the diference?

Storage is where everything you want to keep is stored. If you want an app installed on your computer or phone, it will use up some of that storage space. If you download and save videos, photos or music, it will use up some of that space. The space is filled with things you want to keep after the device has been turned off.

Memory (also known as RAM) contains stuff your device is working on right now. It is only for right now. When you turn off your device, anything in memory will be gone. This is really important.

Explain please

In the previous article, I said memory was like a desk, on which you keep lots of little post-it notes to remind you of all the things you’re trying to do right now. Well, storage is like boxes where you keep some of these for later. The more space you have to store things, the more you can store.

If you are working on, let’s say a document, that is all done in the computer’s temporary memory (i.e. if you turn the computer off, it will be gone) until you actually say to the computer “I want to keep this” by clicking “save”. Once the computer sees you want to keep it, it will make a copy and put it in a storage box for you. Every time you click save, it copies what’s in the memory over the copy you asked it to keep in storage. When you turn the machine off at the end of the day, the stuff in memory will be gone, but the stuff you asked it to store will stay.

Why do we bother having memory? Why not store everything?

A number of reasons. First, if the computer stored everything it ever thought about, your storage would fill up ridiculously fast. Hold CTRL and SHIFT, the press ESC to bring up Task manager. Click “more details”. Scroll down – that’s some of what your computer is thinking about right now. Click the “Services” tab. There’s a load more stuff your computer is thinking about right now. Click the “Details” tab. You get the idea.

As well as this, your computer’s memory is a limited capacity high-speed access location. It always needs elecrticity to work. It is right next to the CPU so that it can transfer information to and from the CPU as quickly as possible. Your storage is much larger but much slower. So your computer uses storage to save stuff and memory to think about stuff. It makes a lot of sense – you probably keep the stuff you need to use all the time on your desk and the stuff you only need occasionally stored in boxes. It’s the same idea.

What kinds of storage are there?

• Hard disk (or Hard Drive): Contains whirring, magnetic disc(s) that spin at high speeds. A needle reads the information from it. As it is mechanical (moving parts), it can break if it is dropped or knocked. It is the slowest modern form of storage.
• Solid State Disk (SSD): No moving parts. Much smaller, faster, more efficient than a hard drive. It is more expensive too, but it is absolutely worth it as your main drive in your next computer. If you are still using a mechanical hard drive in your Windows computer, you will be shocked at how much faster your computer is when you replace it with an SSD. The single most effective upgrade you can perform on any computer.
• NVMe SSD: A type of SSD that is even faster than a regular SSD. This is the way drives are heading. They are a bit larger than a stick of chewing gum and they sit directly on the motherboard, connected directly to the PCIe bus (making them much faster).
• SD card: A type of removable storage. Often used in phones, cameras and some other devices (like some games consoles and TVs). Very small, very convenient but ultimately also very slow compared to SSDs. They do their job really well but it is not their job to be the main storage device for a computer. Bear that in mind.
• USB/Thumb drive: A type of removable storage that uses the same type of technology as the SD card above. Excellent at being a portable way to transfer files, not nearly fast or reliable enough to be a permanent drive on a computer.

How much storage do I need?

Excellent question. For a computer, you would typically need an absolute minimum of 250GB on a fast boot device to store Windows and a few apps. 500GB would give you a much more satisfactory experience.

A lot of storage is in the cloud these days. That means they are stored on a remote copmuter somewhere that is always on, so you can always connect to it. For example, your photos, videos and important files might be on a service like iCloud, OneDrive, Google Photos, Amazon photos, Dropbox… there are hundreds of options. However, they are not stored on your device. You do not have a copy of them if they are only in the cloud. If your cloud service were to switch off tomorrow, you wouldn’t have access to them until the cloud service was turned back on.

Here’s what I recommend

Ensure your computer has about 500GB of storage space internally. Ensure you use a cloud service to back up your files and photos remotely, just in case there was a fire or theft involving your computer. Finally, buy an external hard disk to store a backup of your precious files and photos. As a main drive, hard disks are slow and inefficient. But as a backup medium, they are perfect – large space at a reasonable price, perfect for files and photos you don’t really want everyday access to but you need to be there if the worst ever happened. For most users, I’d recommend something like this, about 5TB of storage, small and compact. Easy to take out of a drawer, connect to your computer, leave it copying your precious files overnight and when you wake up, put it back in the drawer. Do that once or twice a month and you have regular, offline backups that are protected from accidental deletions in the cloud or ransomware attacks.

James