by David Dubrava

Created on: January 23, 2008

"What are you saying? I can't use all my hard drive space?"

A question any technician comes across at one time or another. If you aren't that familiar with computers, learning why 20% of your hard drive should be kept "free" will prevent future headaches and frustrations. Let's begin:

Virtual Memory
What in the world is virtual memory? In order for a program to run smoothly without noticeable lag or delay, it needs to be running by itself away from the hard drive so the computer can quickly and easily access it. This is normally achieved through RAM, or Random Access Memory. RAM is that long, stick-like, circuit board that snaps into a slot on your computers motherboard. And because it is directly connected to the motherboard, access to it is much faster than obtaining information off the hard drive. Think of it as your public library. That is, RAM borrows a copy of the "book" (or information off the hard drive), and returns it when it is finished "reading" it (when the program or file is exited).

But what does that have to do with free hard drive space? While RAM will always be the first option the computer chooses, it's not the only choice it has. Virtual Memory is a dedicated space that is located on the hard drive itself in order to increase the total amount of RAM a computer can use. It works the exact same way RAM does, however, because it is located on the hard drive itself, it is not as fast as RAM and it requires a specific amount of free space available (if your virtual memory is set at 5 GB, then you must have at least 5 GB of free space). The more RAM and Virtual Memory a computer has access to, the more likely it becomes that processes will perform at a higher speeds and efficiency.

Video & Audio Decompression
Your DVD's, AVI's, MPEG's, MP3's, and countless other video and audio formats are, in one form or another, compressed down to a smaller size for storage purposes. When played, they have to be decompressed, or expanded, to their original size for proper playback. Windows will create a temp folder (in most cases this folder already exists) in order to "temporarily" decompress the file. A temp folder is just that. It's temporary virtual memory, in which once again, free space is required. Video and Audio decompression is just one of many things the computer will use temp folders for.

CD to CD Copy
One of the greatest things about owning a computer is creating CD's, especially when you have two CD drives (one has to be a CDRW). With two drives, you

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