Storage is the amount of space available on the hard drive that stores any programs, file or information you have.  You absolutely must have enough storage capability not only to store your files but also to run programs.  If you have been storing pictures, music, word documents or any other data it does take space.  Eventually you will reach the limit that the hard drive can store.  With XP and above it will normally warn you when you get close to the limit. By luck most of the hard drives that are installed today are fairly large and can normally hold all the files you will ever be able to create.  However, if you store large amount of large files it can happen that you could run out.

What if I run out of space?

First of all do not neglect any warnings you get.  If the drive reaches a certain point it may not boot.  This is because programs need some space for temporary files that make them work.  This also includes the operating system.  Your options are numerous.  You could take the information (such as pictures) and move them to a CD or DVD.  You could buy a USB drive (recommended) and start moving your pictures or other data to that drive.  Although you could have another internal drive installed, I feel it is way to much work and may be expense now that there are USB drives. You will need to know if you have a ATA or SATA drive if you plan to put in an internal drive.   If you don’t know how to install a second drive you may need to pay somebody to do it.  With a USB drive you just plug it into a USB port and you’re done.  You can also use a Flash drive if you don’t have too many files.  However, they do manufacture them up to 16 GIG which will store quite a bit of data.  These Flash drives increase in storage size and decrease in price all the time.  If you want to transport files from point to point this is the only way to go. 

What about RAM?

First and foremost it is NOT storage.  It is also called memory.  It does not have any ability to store any information of any kind.  It is your working space or where programs go to do the work you need to do.  If you even type a template it takes RAM working in the background to get any work of any kind done. If your desktop runs slow

or you are have a hard time opening program, you may need more RAM.  The cheapest and fastest upgrade you can do is to add more RAM.  This will let programs load faster and you will be able to get more productivity.  In the event more RAM does not help speed things up, there could be other problems such as a Virus or Spyware.  There could be a hardware problem also.

If you are low on RAM, programs will try to use the Hard drive instead (known as paging).  That is why things slow down. This is especially a problem if you are lacking hard drive space.  This is referring to virtual memory and it can be adjusted although it is beyond the scope of this article.