main memory

English

Noun

main memory (countable and uncountable, plural main memories)

  1. (computing) Volatile memory forming most of a computer’s primary storage, not including cache memory (central processing unit cache) and secondary storage (mass storage).

Notes

This term is mostly used in more technical material. Less formally, main memory is usually simply called random access memory (RAM).

In "main memory", "memory" specifically refers to volatile memory. When secondary memory (which is non-volatile) is also included, main memory generally excludes most of a computer’s memory, since secondary storage is typically more than an order of magnitude larger than main memory (and than primary storage as a whole). The clearer term "main volatile memory" is however enormously rarer.

Translations

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.