Why RAM? Why Not Hard drive?

[rememberme]

sure the 0.9 isnt the seek time?

Its basically because the hard drive has the moving heads as someone said and to read 512MB of data the heads need to be moved over all the information areas at a speed it can read. To do that in nano seconds the heads would need to cover more data in the same time frame and to do that the heads would need to be pretty precise! ...and I'm sure there must be some lag when dealing with other IDE devices as well as the fact that the hard drive has other processes to deal with and as you know they can only do one thing at a time! In fact... hard drives suck!

 

[jinexile]

L1 Cache located directly on the processor, the fastest possible memory to access. Limited by size
L2 Cache next fastest, located close to the processor but not on it. Not as fast as L1 cache but capable of storing more
Ram nowhere near as fast as L2 or L1 but capable of storing even more data
Harddrive nowhere near as fast as ram but capable of storing yet even more information AND is not volitle (meaning loses it's information when power is off)


The average hardrive has an 8 millisecond seek time
Ram has an average about 20 nanoseconds

Harddrive: 8000 nanosecond access time
Ram: 20 nanosecond accesstime

The difference in speeds is astronomical

 

[algu7344]

Harddrives have a very slow access tiems. ^^^^^^

 

[Mohan Giri]

Somebody told RAM is a electrical device. Its wrong. Its a electronic device and harddrive is also not a mechanical device. Mechanical operation is taking place there.

 

[FrontSide]

That makes no sense.

RAM is not electrical? It's electronic?

HDDs are not mechanical? But they operate mechanically?

 

[jinexile]

Ram = No moving parts
Harddrive = Moving parts

Harddrive heads can move fast in relation to what humans consider fast, but to electricity they might as well not be moving.

 

[dale5605]

L2 cache is on the processor...
same with L3...

 

[jinexile]

Yea my mistake Im still living in the 80s

 

[HAVOC]

This thread is pretty funny.

I would second the motion of picking up a copy of a A+ Certification Manual.

LOL