Random Access Memory (Windows 7)

Windows 7 have the maximum of RAM that limit for 32-bit, Windows 7 editions is 4GB,
when it comes to the 64-bit editions, the amount of memory that the OS can address depends
on which edition you are running.
Here are the upper RAM limits for the different editions of Windows 7:
Starter: 8GB
Home Basic: 8GB
Home Premium: 16GB
Professional: 192GB
Enterprise: 192GB
Ultimate: 192GB

These limits are similar to those for Vista editions; expect that Vista Enterprise and Vista
Ultimate have had their upper limits raised from 128GB to 192GB


Figure 1 : Ram Diagram(Tazalik, 2011)

Moreover flash memory in some respects is very similar to a computers RAM
(random access memory), except that flash memory does not lose its contents when the
power is removed, which means that flash memory is non-volatile. The most common types
of flash memory are NOR and NAND. NOR flash memory is operationally the closest to
RAM in that each byte is individually addressable, while NAND flash memory is organized
into blocks, like a disk. Typically, NOR-type flash memory is used to hold the BIOS on your
computers motherboard, and NAND-type flash memory is used in SSDs. The most
important difference between flash memory and RAM is that RAM can be read and written
an almost infinite number of times, while flash memory can be overwritten something less
than 100,000 times. (Depending on the type of flash memory, it may be as few as 1,000
times). In effect, flash memory wears out, so flash memory should be treated more like media
with a limited lifetime (such as a floppy disk) than RAM or a magnetic disk. Another major
difference between flash memory and RAM is that flash memory cannot be updated in place;
a block must be erased before it can be written (even for NOR-type flash memory). Flash
memory is significantly faster than magnetic disks (usually by a factor of 100,000, or so;
access time: 50 nanoseconds versus 5 milliseconds), but it is slower than RAM (usually by a
factor of 50). From a practical perspective, memory access time is not the whole story
because flash memory is not on the system memory bus. Instead, it sits behind a disk type
controller interface on an I/O bus, so in reality the difference between flash and magnetic
disks may be on the order of only 1,000 times faster, and in some workloads a rotating
magnetic disk can outperform a low-end SSD.
NAND-Type Flash Memory NAND-type flash memory is most commonly used in SSDs, so
that is what we will examine in detail.


Figure 2: NAND and NOR (Jim Cooke, 2011)