Talk:Flash memory

This article is incorrect; RAM means Random Access Memory. It does not mean it is erased every time it is powered off. RAM is memory which can be rewritten, as opposed to ROM (Read-Only Memory). Someone please correct this article.

I believe what is meant here is that flash memory is different from a stick of memory that is placed in a memory slot in a computer (usually 32MB to 2GB). This memory is commonly referred to as RAM, but it's not the same as what has been written in this article.

RAM does loose it's contents once the power is turned off. On some systems, a battery powered backed up power may be available to the RAM and the contents are kept as long as the power is available.

While its true that current commercially viable types of RAM lose their contents when power is turned off, that isn't the definition of RAM - so this should be said more carefully. ToolmakerSteve (talk) 00:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Flash memory is one kind of Non-volatile random-access memory.[change source]

"random access" is incorrect. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_memory: "A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the physical location of data inside the memory."

That is not the case for flash memory. Rather, flash can efficiently access a block of memory; reading random words one at a time will have a much lower throughput than reading a block at a time. And writing a single word requires first reading the block, then changing the single word. (Higher end flash memories may do this internally, by incorporating some volatile RAM. But it still is much lower performance than writing a random word to a true RAM memory.) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory. ToolmakerSteve (talk) 00:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]