Conclusion On RAM stick - RAM stick make works totally differently from the system memory.RAM stick provide large amount of speed for running the system.

I have a Windows Vista installed in my system with 2GB RAM in it.I came to know about USB RAM sticks somewhere as a memory enhancement device.Can I enhance my computer’s memory 4GB by using these RAM sticks ? How can I do that ?

Sticks of RAM

Before going into detail, you must know the difference between system memory and USB sticks.

• System memory has one characteristic that whenever power goes off, it loses its contents.While USB memory retains its contents if power switches off.
• System’s memory typically resides on motherboard from where CPU caches blocks of data.Whereas USB memory sticks uses a concept of Flash RAM.
• It is known as flash RAM because as soon as contents are loaded into memory, a signal is sent to a memory telling it to “remember present contents”.
• USB memory sticks will retain its contents, even after it is totally unplugged from the computer.

Computer RAM sticks

• Different terms are used for these devices like USB drive, thumb drives, memory keys, pen drives, geek sticks,key chain drives and memory sticks (is a proprietary trade mark for Sony ‘s memory cards).
• Flash drives is the most common name used for USB storage.
• It can be used for almost everything software distribution, operating system, backing up of data and applications.It can also store personal stuff like pictures,movies and videos.
• Flash RAM simply remembers everything if the flash goes off.

USB RAM stick

• USB Flash drive contains a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with flash memory chips and a USB connector attached to it.
• PCB contains a processor which acts as a mass storage controller.It allows PC to access USB memory.
• This controller mainly takes care of block access of flash RAM, so that all the flash RAM chips are equally used.
• If only few blocks are repeatedly used then there is a possibility that your RAM soon wear out.
• One flip side is that flash RAM is very slow in reading as well as writing.

RAM memory sticks

Memory sticks come in different flavours and formats.Some of thems are given below –

• Memory Stick – This original stick is available in 4 MB to 128 MB sizes.
• Memory Stick Select – This is available as 2 separate 128 MB partitions.
• Memory Stick PRO – These sticks provide higher speed and the size is 32 MB.
• Memory Stick Duo – Available in 256 MB size, used in pocket size cameras.
• Memory Stick PRO Duo – It is available in 32 GB size but can be extended upto few Terabytes.
• Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo – It has transfer rate of 480Mbit/s (60MByte/s), almost thrice of earlier version.
• Memory Stick Micro (M2) – It consists of 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, and 16 GB capacities available.
• Memory Stick XC – Memory Stick XC provide maximum 2 TB capacity which is 64 times faster than Memory Stick PRO.