I had a great conversation yesterday to clear up my confusion regarding CPU processing, hard disk space and memory. I guess I am not the only one that is confused regarding the difference in these terms. I had mixed up each term for one another at some time or another and also thought that a few were synonymous with the same things. I came up with an analogy to better understand each of these processes.

Think of an office with 3 things. These things are workers, one desk and a file cabinet.

1.) Hard disk space would be equivalent to the filing cabinet. A bigger filing cabinet, the more “stuff” you can store. The ame thing can be said with a web hosting account. The more hard disk space you have, the more stuff you can store.

2.) Memory is equivalent to the desk. The larger the desk you have, the more stuff you can work on at a time. Everything that is done with the projects on the desk is temporary, unless saved into the filing cabinet. Same can be said about memory. You can work on projects that are currently in memory, but they are not permanent unless they are saved and moved into the hard disk space.

3.) Processing speed is how many employees are working on the project. The more people you have, the better, in this scenario. Employees help you to store the projects on the desk (memory) into the filing cabinet (hard disk), pull files from the filing cabinet to the desk and helps you be more efficient when working on the projects currently on the desk.