Apart from being one of the most essential parts of your computer, hard drive storage is constantly updating, in terms of both capacity of disk space and in physical size. When it comes time to upgrade your disk storage, there are a number of factors for you to take into account. Once you've made basic decisions about size, connectivity, speed and data transfer rate, and whether you want an internal drive or external.

The word ‘memory’ is commonly used in computer parlance to refer to RAM. When you start an application, say a game, your computer stores some of the data required to make it work in the RAM so that it can be easily and speedily accessed. There are several forms of memory in the computer (for example the hard drive, is also a form of memory). RAM, however, is of foremost importance, since it is the first place where the data is directed to when an application is started. Only after passing through RAM is any data stored in any other storage device.

Upgrading the memory in your computer or laptop is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of improving your computer's performance. Still many computer owners shy away from any memory upgrade for a number of reasons: lack of knowledge, warranty issues, fear of ruining their computers, compatibility concerns, or just an innate feeling that the inside of their computer is just some alien territory they must never venture.

With the proliferation of laptop computers, choosing to upgrade or implement notebook computer memory is not as straight forward as it may seem at first.

Memory card speed is the card's performance with regard to how quickly data can be transferred to or from it. The card speed is often stated in 'Times' ratings i.e. 12X, 40X etc (just as the speed of recordable CD's and DVD's is measured), and sometimes more specifically in megabytes per second (Mb/s). By today's measure, sub 20X represents a standard speed, 20X to 40X is mid-high speed and over 40X is high speed. The chart below shows the relationship between the two figures.