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As the primary memory fills up, the system moves the least-used chunks to a swap file or page file on secondary storage, retrieving them later when needed. If a lot of pages are moved to slower secondary storage, the system performance is degraded. The secondary storage, including HDD, ODD and SSD, are usually block-addressable.
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]
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]
An illustration of the write amplification phenomenon in flash-based storage devices. Over time, advancements in central processing unit (CPU) speed has driven innovation in secondary storage technology. [7] One such innovation, flash memory, is a non-volatile storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed.
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.
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 ...
Volatile memory, in contrast to non-volatile memory, is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information; it retains its contents while powered on but when the power is interrupted, the stored data is quickly lost. Volatile memory has several uses including as primary storage.
The distinction is not always sharp; as mentioned, a paging system can allow main memory (primary storage) to be compressed (by paging to hard drive (secondary storage)), and some systems allow discardable memory for caches, which is compressible without disastrous performance impact. Electrical power is to some degree compressible: without ...