Random Access Memory (RAM) is a type of computer memory used to store data actively being used by a computer. This is very different than hard drive space, which is longer term storage (Note: hard drives aren’t the only type of “persistent storage” but we’ll just use this term throughout the article for simplicity). While hard drive storage persists between power-offs, anything stored in memory will be gone when the machine powers back on.
Characteristics of RAM
It stores things temporarily
As mentioned above, RAM is stored temporarily and does not persist past reboots. It is “volatile.” This may seem like a negative, but it’s essentially the trade-off for RAM’s big benefit…
It has really fast read/write speeds
The CPU can write data to and read data from RAM orders of magnitude faster than long-term storage. This is critical for executing tasks quickly. If your computer is laggy when performing tasks, it’s often lack of RAM that’s the culprit.
Computers usually have an order of magnitude less RAM than hard drive space
Computers will often have something in the range of 500 GB hard drive space but somewhere in the range of 4 GB - 64 GB RAM. This makes sense if you think about it: you’d expect to have a lot more information in long-term storage than information you’re using at any one moment.
Why RAM is important when buying a laptop
When you open a program on your computer, part of that program and its data will be loaded in to RAM. By having the information in RAM, your computer can access the program and its code quickly. If your computer runs out of RAM, it will resort to using the hard drive to store information. As we discussed, this is much slower than RAM and you’ll often see a slowdown.
If you know what programs you plan on using, it’s a good idea to check their RAM requirements. Often programs list “minimum requirements” on their websites for this purpose. I have often found that these minimum requirements are often a bit too minimal and recommend going a bit higher (this strategy also future-proofs a bit).