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Secondary storage is non-volatile (retaining data when its power is shut off). Modern computer systems typically have two orders of magnitude more secondary storage than primary storage because secondary storage is less expensive. In modern computers, hard disk drives (HDDs) or solid-state drives (SSDs) are usually used as secondary storage.
Main memory (Primary storage) – GiB [citation needed] [original research] in size. Best access speed is around 10 GB/s. [9] In the case of a NUMA machine, access times may not be uniform; Disk storage (Secondary storage) – Terabytes in size. As of 2017, best access speed is from a consumer solid state drive is about 2000 MB/s [10]
Computer memory stores information, such as data and programs, for immediate use in the computer. [2] The term memory is often synonymous with the terms RAM, main memory, or primary storage. Archaic synonyms for main memory include core (for magnetic core memory) and store. [3]
In computer operating systems, memory paging (or swapping on some Unix-like systems) is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from secondary storage [a] for use in main memory. [1] In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage in same-size blocks called pages.
RAM drives use normal system memory as if it were a partition on a physical hard drive rather than accessing the data bus normally used for secondary storage. Though RAM drives can often be supported directly in the operating system via special mechanisms in the OS kernel , it is generally simpler to access a RAM drive through a virtual device ...
Single-level storage (SLS) or single-level memory is a computer storage term which has had two meanings. The two meanings are related in that in both, pages of memory may be in primary storage or in secondary storage (disk), and that the physical location of a page is unimportant to a process.
In operating systems, memory management is the function responsible for managing the computer's primary memory. [1]: 105–208 The memory management function keeps track of the status of each memory location, either allocated or free. It determines how memory is allocated among competing processes, deciding which gets memory, when they receive ...
Each allocated memory block is given a master descriptor with the properties of the block — physical address, size, and whether it is present in main memory or not, in which case on first access the block must be allocated, or if there is an address, it is an address on secondary storage and must be loaded to main memory.