Memory is a very important part of the computer. Although memory is technically any form of storage on a computer, the word is mostly used to refer to fast, but temporary type of electronic storage. If there was no memory, your CPU would have to take all of its information from the hard drive and other forms of permanent storage, which are very slow compared to today's memory speed standards.

A variety of computer memory modules.
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To demonstrate why memory is to used to make a computer, I will use a very simple example of two students who are currently going to high school. We will use John and Jessica as the names for the two students. Since both of the students have many textbooks and notebooks, they are assigned a locker in which they can store their books and equipment. It would just be too hard to haul all of their books to every one of their classes, as well as to their homes.

John is very lazy, and never plans ahead. He never comes to any of his classes prepared. Whenever his teacher switches the subject within the period, John is forced to go to his locker and bring the required equipment. When he is at his locker, instead of bringing everything he will need for the rest of the class, he only brings what he will need the current part of the class. This wastes much of his time throughout the day, because he constantly has to make trips to his locker, which by the way, is on the other side of the school. Sometimes, he even has to go home to get some of his things, which wastes even more time. If only John could be more like Jessica, he would get things done faster, and save the energy of making hundreds of trips a week to his locker.

Jessica, on the other hand, plans ahead. When she goes to her classes, she takes everything she needs for her class. This way, when the teacher switches the subject, all Jessica has to do is pull the required equipment out of her desk, and she is all ready to go. When the period ends, she makes a short trip to her locker. She unloads all of her things from the last period, takes everything she needs for the next period, and she is all set.

Although John and Jessica are not computers, this example shows the advantages of having temporary memory. The computer stores data it accesses the most in the memory, so that the computer runs faster. If it had to take things out of the hard drive every time it performed an operation, operations would take a very long time to complete, and much of the time would be wasted. John would represent a computer with no memory, while Jessica would represent a computer with a sufficient amount of memory.

There are many different types of memory in the computer. Each type of memory has its own role to fulfill. Although most memory types are built roughly the same way, there are some differences. This is why we will be discussing the different memory types, including:

• Cache

• RAM

• SD-RAM/SD-RAM based technology

• RD-RAM

As well, we will be talking about the different performance factors for memory and which memory is best suited for certain purposes.