What is "cache"?

What is "cache"?

Ali Nasri (Computer Specialist, Mac 911 Inc.) gives expert video advice on: How does cache affect the speed of my computer? and more...

Cache is short-term storage. Cache enables a computer to store parts of data, or complete data, in an area of the computer that can be accessed more rapidly. For example, a computer could take information that is stored on a hard drive and put that information onto a memory chip. It can read and written faster to a memory chip than it can read and written to a hard drive. That also comes into play when you go on the internet and you browse Web pages. There is software cache, where the computer will store frequently accessed websites or images that you visited. This cache works so that the next time you go to that website, it doesn't have to download all that information again - it can just access it quickly from the hard drive.