... Recommend this series to a friend.

Computers must store data somewhere. Where does your computer store its data?

The primary location is on the hard drive, or hard disk. It's the same thing--just different words are used to describe it.

Your hard drive is called 'hard' because it's not soft. Really. In the 'old days' of computing, we used 'floppy disks' to store data. They were soft and pliable, and got messed up all the time.

Hard disks came along and replaced the floppy disk.

How many different types of disks are there? I won't enumerate them all here, but will give you some basic principles that guide you.

1. If it's inside your computer, it's a hard disk. That is, if you cannot remove it except to open the computer case.

2. If you can remove the disk, it's called 'removable storage'. That is, items like 3.5 inch disks, Zip disks, etc.

A Zip disk is a popular brand of removable storage that comes in 100 megabyte and 250 megabyte flavors. It requires a special disk reader, too, which is readily available most any office store. There's another storage device known as 'optical storage' or the CD. Who hasn't seen a CD? These are obviously removable, and the nicest thing about them is the amount of data they will hold. The common CD discs hold 700 megabytes of data, and you can create them yourself if you have a CD burner.

All computers come with a hard drive. Most come with a small slot for a 3.5 inch diskette. This slot is the "A drive" or "B drive"

.Storage is different from memory. Remember, your hard or soft disks or drives store your stuff even when the computer is turned off. On the other hand, your computer's memory, or RAM, only holds data when the computer is turned on. As soon as you turn it off, all the data in RAM is lost.

There are external hard drives, too. These are special units that attach by a cable to your computer, and are great for laptop computers, or anyone who doesn't want to open their computer case and install an additional hard drive. (It's only easy if you've done it before.)