Well, could it be considered random access memory?
Not really, a bit further down in the Wiki article it says:
RAM is normally associated with volatile types of memory where stored information is lost if power is removed.
Which is not really the case for SSDs (except for cached data that hasn’t been written yet). That said, yes you can use a SSD as RAM through pagefiles, swap partitions, or whatever, but the same is true for a HDD. So in the context of where to install an OS it’s a rather irrelevant detail. SSDs are power cycle persistent storage.
Its not ‘special kind’. Flash memory is a type of nvram. It was a test to see if you would catch on. Theres also neat things like phase change RAM, aka DVD-RAM.
Well it’s special in the sense that opposed to the most common kind of RAM, DRAM and SRAM, it has non volatile storage. Which is why it’s referred to as NVRAM instead of simply RAM. Saying RAM usually implies volatile storage in a PC, certainly does in the context of an OS install on a HDD and SSD, and in that context a SSD isn’t RAM. Yes there are minutiae to the terminology, but I don’t see how that’s relevant here.
Its relevant because its primary use doesnt change how the memory is accessed. The only reason NVRAM doesnt see use as primary system ram is that they are much slower and many types have limited write cycles making them unsuitable for the job.
In the context of setting up a PC a SSD is a drive, not RAM. You couldn’t pull out your RAM DIMMs and just run on your NVME/SATA SSD as RAM instead (unless your CPU/MB support that which to my knowledge isn’t common). I’m not saying that flash memory isn’t random access memory in the general sense of the word, I’m saying that when talking about a PC specifically RAM refers to special memory the motherboard makes directly available to the CPU, and a SSD isn’t that.
Not really, a bit further down in the Wiki article it says:
Which is not really the case for SSDs (except for cached data that hasn’t been written yet). That said, yes you can use a SSD as RAM through pagefiles, swap partitions, or whatever, but the same is true for a HDD. So in the context of where to install an OS it’s a rather irrelevant detail. SSDs are power cycle persistent storage.
What is ‘NVRAM’ then?
A special kind of RAM that is power cycle persistent but has other downsides and thus didn’t really have success on the PC market?
Its not ‘special kind’. Flash memory is a type of nvram. It was a test to see if you would catch on. Theres also neat things like phase change RAM, aka DVD-RAM.
Well it’s special in the sense that opposed to the most common kind of RAM, DRAM and SRAM, it has non volatile storage. Which is why it’s referred to as NVRAM instead of simply RAM. Saying RAM usually implies volatile storage in a PC, certainly does in the context of an OS install on a HDD and SSD, and in that context a SSD isn’t RAM. Yes there are minutiae to the terminology, but I don’t see how that’s relevant here.
Its relevant because its primary use doesnt change how the memory is accessed. The only reason NVRAM doesnt see use as primary system ram is that they are much slower and many types have limited write cycles making them unsuitable for the job.
In the context of setting up a PC a SSD is a drive, not RAM. You couldn’t pull out your RAM DIMMs and just run on your NVME/SATA SSD as RAM instead (unless your CPU/MB support that which to my knowledge isn’t common). I’m not saying that flash memory isn’t random access memory in the general sense of the word, I’m saying that when talking about a PC specifically RAM refers to special memory the motherboard makes directly available to the CPU, and a SSD isn’t that.
Next you’re going to tell me Apple Macs are not PCs.