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29 January, 2016

Why RAM is Faster than Hard Disk

Hard Drive requires the sequential translation of information from an electro-mechanical
medium to a logical medium

RAM requires a sequential read from one logical medium to another logical medium to another.


Performance of hard disk is specified by the time required to move the heads to a track or cylinder (average access time) plus the time it takes for the desired sector to move under the head (average latency, which is a function of the physical rotational speed in revolutions per minute), and finally the speed at which the data is transmitted (data rate). In RAM the time required to read and write data items varies depending on their physical locations on the recording medium, due to mechanical limitations such as media rotation speeds and arm movement delays.

Every time you open a program, it gets loaded from the hard drive into the RAM. This is because reading data from the RAM is much faster than reading data from the hard drive. Running programs from the RAM of the computer allows them to function without any lag time. The more RAM your computer has, the more data can be loaded from the hard drive into the RAM, which can effectively speed up your computer. In fact, adding RAM can be more beneficial to your computer’s performance than upgrading the CPU.