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Question

why does my hard drive seem to stay clean but I never

May 24, 2019 5:54PM PDT

seem to have enough ram? it seems as though and this is my 3rd computer over 25 years or more only. that my ram seems to suffer. I also have this problem on my phone. I don't have enough space on my phone to do updates. when I look at my computer hard drive 75% of it not being used.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Hard Drive Space And RAM Are Two Different Things
May 24, 2019 8:57PM PDT

Hard drive space is the amount of storage space you have on the drive. The memory card of a phone is similar but it's flash memory which stores data. They both store permanent data there. It's not RAM. (Random Access Memory.) If you don't have enough space on your phones internal memory storage card, then updates won't install because they need more space to install their files. Clean out some of the junk on the phones storage, such as pictures/photos and long text messages which contain photos. It will help. Likewise with your computers. Although some folks can use up all the HDD disk storage space, you have not. 75% available should never stop you from installing things.

On the other hand, in regards to a phone or a computer's RAM, a computer tends to use as much RAM as is available so it can temporarily store data and use it however the operating system wants to use it. If there's not enough RAM, the job will generally still get done, it just gets done slower. If you are having error messages regarding not enough RAM, then install more ( It's a cheap way to increase performance on a computer.) or reduce the number of programs or apps using that RAM. Because most folks leave all sorts of apps running, shut down unnecessary background programs and apps that steal RAM.

Hope this helps.

Grif,

Post was last edited on May 24, 2019 9:05 PM PDT

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Answer
Well RAM is key to multi-tasking
May 30, 2019 6:20AM PDT

When you browse the web and have multiple tabs open what happens is the one you are currently viewing is one the screen. The tabs in the background are stored into memory as long as there is memory left. If you exhaust the ram the background tabs are stored on the drive. Because the speed of the ram is faster then your drive your system is faster with the more ram you have. Most systems today work fine with 8gb of ram.