Memory vs Hard Drive - What's the difference?

OK, I'll admit this is probably a little off topic, but I get asked this question all the time. If I get a bigger hard drive will my computer go faster? Or, I have a lot of memory but I can't save any more files to my hard drive, what's going on?

I guess having used and worked on computers since middle school has made me oblivious to the fact that this stuff is not just common knowledge. There are people who really do not understand what the difference between a hard drive and memory is. So I've decided to see if I can help explain this a little better. The reason this has come up this week is because my father and I were having this discussion over the weekend and I didn't feel like I was explaining it as clearly as possible. So I thought about what I could relate it to that most people would understand. So here goes...

Lets think about your car for a minute. You have a gas tank and you have a battery right? OK, your gas tank holds the fuel for the car and stores that fuel until it is called on to run the car. The battery is used for things like the lights, radio, locks, horn etc. The battery doesn't hold anything but a charge that is used when needed.

Think of your hard drive as the gas tank for your computer. You can fill up the hard drive with files that when needed are called on and can be worked with. Unlike a car you can put the files back that you've just used, where as the gas is gone, but you get the idea. Now the memory for your computer is like the battery. It doesn't store anything it just holds the "charge" that is used when the computer needs to run or think about programs. The larger the memory the faster or more efficient your computer is able to run.

So when you are looking to purchase a new computer for yourself or the office remember that the larger the number is for the memory the more efficiently your computer can run, and the larger the hard drive is the more files you can store on the computer. Hopefully this will help at least one or two people.

Remember: You store stuff on your hard drive and you pull power from your memory.

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