RAM Vs Hard Disk (HD) Vs Mini HD (Hard Disk)

What do RAM; HD and Mini HD mean? If you don't know what they actually mean, don't worry about it. Understanding what a RAM Jukebox is capable of doing versus a HD Jukebox is more relevant, really. Do you know, exactly, how your fridge works? Some people will, some of you won't. For the majority of people knowing exactly how their fridge works is not important. Knowing what they can do with it is much more relevant.

Basically RAM, Hard Disk (HD), or Mini HD refers to how the Jukebox stores the music. More specifically: the type of storage media used.

Most of the Jukeboxes for sale on this site are 'HD': Hard Disk, or Hard Drive players. They are called hard drive players because the music is stored on a hard drive, like the one your computer uses to store its files and programs. These are sometimes also called HDD for Hard Disk Drives. HD is quicker to type.

The reason why most of the Jukeboxes we sell are HD models is because they can normally store about 50 times as much music as the RAM Players. The newer HD models can store about 140 times as much music as the largest RAM players.

As you can see if you cross check the prices, the difference between the cost of a HD player and RAM player is not that great - so why would anyone want to buy a RAM player, like the Archos FM Ondio 128?

Unlike the HD players, RAM players have no moving parts. This means that they are particularly resistant to 'shock'. What that means is that you can take a RAM player jogging without the music constantly stuttering because of the vibration, or jolt, you generate whilst running. The same is not entirely true of current HD models (More about memory buffering here).

RAM players currently hold up to a maximum of 512MB of music files, which translates as about enough for 8 hours of MP3 music.

Mini HDs are the latest media to be used in personal Jukeboxes. As you may have guessed from their name they are Miniature Hard Disks.

Mini HD jukeboxes have started off in the no-man's-land between the large capacity Hard Disk models and the low capacity RAM models. As time passes we expect them to get closer in terms of capacity to the larger HD models but in a smaller size Jukebox.

Like the larger standard HD jukebox players these mini-HD models have got moving parts, which means that they can be jolted or 'shocked' into reading or writing errors. However, the fact that they weigh so much less means that the destructive forces are lessened as a result. I.e. they are less susceptible to hard disk errors caused by shock than standard HD models.

Below is a simple table comparing RAM Vs HD Vs Mini HD