Why Do You Need Plenty of RAM? - Part 2

So why bother with a hard disk?

Seeing that, you might think that it would be great in the event you could use huge amounts of RAM in lieu of a hard disk. You are right, this would be a great situation, but as you may think, the faster the memory in your computer, the more pricey it is. RAM prices have come down significantly in recent years, but it will still cost you much more compared to Hard Drive space.

Computers work within this constraint - that faster memory is more pricey - by looking in the quickest place for knowledge first, then moving to slower locations only when they need to. So in the event you listen to your hard drive making noise or you see a light telling you it is being accessed, you know the knowledge could not be present in RAM.

Now you know that the hard drive access that is going on is slow, & that is the reason your CPU, & in turn you, must wait.

So now you know that you need lots of RAM, at least for all of your programs, so you don't must access your slow hard drive often. But what actually makes use of your RAM, & how are you able to see whether your system has ?

Windows itself takes up lots of RAM. Microsoft says Windows XP will run on a machine with 64 MB of RAM, though they recommend 128 MB or 256 MB. In the event you have even more RAM than that, & I recommend you do, Windows will use numerous it as well.

Everything that lots when you boot up your computer also makes use of RAM. What these programs are actually doing is putting themselves in to RAM, if is available, so that they can be used quickly. The issue is when there is not memory for all these programs, & your computer runs slowly.

On my machine these programs load when I turn on my computer:


AVG Antivirus

Scanner Application

Digital Camera Application

Gmail Notifier

AOL Instant Messenger

& some server application for testing
Then, everything I run after the boot up makes use of more RAM. Whatever Web Browser I use, for example, takes up RAM. Microsoft Word does , as well as all my programs. To see how much RAM you have & how much free RAM you have, you can open up Task Manager by right clicking on the beginning menu & selecting it, it looks like this.

On the right, in the Physical Memory section my RAM is listed. My total & available memory is listed, & as you can see, booting my computer in to Windows XP & loading all the things I do, I have less than half of my RAM available for other programs.

Your system will probably have less total RAM, but you'll be able to see how much & how much you have free. You can fundamentally find out how much ram you have by right clicking on "My Computer" & going to properties, but it is useful to see it here so you understand what the Task Manager is showing. You can use this tool to convert the number shown in "K" to a number that you may be more comfortable with, in "MB".