The Need for Primary Storage Flashcards

All 5 cards in this deck

What is primary storage?

Storage that holds the data, programs and instructions currently in use by the processor.

Why does a computer system need primary storage?

So the processor can access the data and instructions it is currently using very quickly.

What is cache memory?

High-speed volatile memory built into the processor that temporarily holds data and instructions the processor is likely to reuse.

Why does cache memory speed up processing?

The processor does not have to wait to fetch the data and instructions from the slower RAM.

True or false? Cache memory is slower than RAM but much larger.

False. Cache is faster than RAM, but it is very small and more expensive to build.