Question

Compare physical storage and virtual storage. Give an example of each and explain why one type allows computers to access data at a faster rate than the other.

Answer 1

RAM is the “physical memory”. RAM is used when any application is in need of execution. The system is faster only because of RAM because it loads all the data which is required by the application which needs to be executed. It is faster than the “virtual memory”.

“Virtual memory” is used when RAM runs out of space. “Virtual memory” is stored in hard disk. So operation from hard disk will be slower when compared to RAM. Since virtual memory is stored in hard disk, virtual memory operations are slow.