What is primary and secondary memory?

Primary memory is the main memory of the computer system. Accessing data from primary memory is faster because it is an internal memory of the computer. The primary memory is most volatile which means data in primary memory does not exist if it is not saved when a power failure occurs.

Two types of Primary Memory are:

• RAM
• ROM

All secondary storage devices which are capable of storing high volume data is referred to secondary memory. It's slower than primary memory. However, it can save a substantial amount of data, in the range of gigabytes to terabytes. This memory is also called backup storage or mass storage media.

Two types of magnetic disks are:

• Floppy disks
• Hard disks

1. Primary / Main memory:

Primary memory is the computer memory that is directly accessible by CPU. It is comprised of DRAM and provides the actual working space to the processor. It holds the data and instructions that the processor is currently working on.

2. Secondary Memory / Mass Storage:

The contents of the secondary memory first get transferred to the primary memory and then are accessed by the processor, this is because the processor does not directly interact with the secondary memory