DEVICE STORAGE MEMORY IN SIMPLE OFFICE ANALOGY

By CM Lim

Checking your mobile phone storage, have you wonder why there are so many storage memory reading? which is more important? how are they related to each other?

e.g. RAM: 4 GB / Device Storage: 64 GB

The same goes for Computer or Tablet or Camera.. etc..

My few years in the IT career, I explained to customers about the relationship between these storage memory, one of my Office Analogy illustrates really well, giving instant insight and clarification, I'll share this analogy here, to simplify the storage puzzles like RAM, HDD, SD Card and the rest.


No worry on the technicality, this article does not attempt to dwell on the detail or jargon of memory components e.g. RAM, or SD Card, but a simple analogy of various storage working relationship in a device.

TWO TYPES OF STORAGE MEMORY USED

There are many memory storage systems, fortunately they serve one of the two storage purposes, to store data Temporarily or Permanently and they are closely interdependent.

TEMPORARY STORAGE

They are called many names, RAM, Internal Memory etc.. As the name Temporary implies, information is temporarily represented by electricity, when there is no electricity, there is no Information or Data.

PERMANENT STORAGE

Names like HDD, Internal storage, Thumb drive, SD Card, Flash Card etc..they are the Permanent storage. Being Permanent, Data remain stored with or without electrical power,
until Data is changed.

So forget about all the above jargon and jump right into the office analogy to understand how these two storage memory types coexist.

STORAGE MEMORY IN SIMPLE OFFICE ANALOGY

Your office table is like a device Temporary Storage.

Your File Cabinet is like a device Permanent Storage. 

To work on your files, you go to your file cabinet to retrieve them.
You put the files on your Table to work, write, draw, calculate etc... 
This is liken to your computer or Phone, it loads the files you want from the Permanent storage to Temporary storage to work on.

At the end of the day, you return all files on your Table to the file cabinets 
This is liken to the computer saving all works on Temporary to Permanent Storage, and you switch the computer off



End of analogy, and that's it.

OFFICE ANALOGY EXPLAINED

From the Office Table and Cabinet example, it is evident that these two storage types are mutually dependent and they work hand in hand to allow for fast, seamless data access and storage.

Permanent storage like Hard Disk, Thumb drive is design to Encode data onto itself by way of modifying magnetic state or transistors, the purpose is to retain data physically. Like your office file cabinets, the purpose is to keep all the files there until when needed. The hassle is, one need to go to the cabinet for filing, like the extra routine of encoding data onto the Permanent Storage, this extra routine means extra time, and is where Temporary Storage lends its design for speedy access.


Temporary storage like RAM is design to work fast holding on to data by means of electricity, doing away that extra step of encoding physical data. Like your office table, the object is for you to work on it comfortably and productively within arm's reach, the larger the table space the more things you can place on it to work on, shuttling less between the file cabinets. 

Terms like HDD, RAM, Flash, USB, Internal external memory.... their purpose, in a nutshell, is either to function as Table or File cabinet, hope you get the idea.

Thank you for reading: 

Device Storage Memory in simple office analogy.