Volatile versus non-volatile memory
To keep things consistent with everyday speech, we’re going to continue to use the term “memory” for any device that can store data. Though we did make a distinction in the prior section, from here on out, the term “memory” will refer to either a storage device or a device such as RAM. In terms of application, there is a major difference between volatile memory and storage. Essentially, the difference between the two types of memory boils down to whether or not data is permanently stored after a machine is power cycled. To begin the discussion, let’s explore volatile memory.
Volatile memory
In a technical sense, the best way to describe volatile memory is as non-persistent memory. Non-persistent memory is a fancy way of saying that the data stored is lost when the chips lose power. A common example of volatile memory is RAM. When a program loads, it gets dumped into RAM, where it is then executed. The...
