If you see any of those 3 terms used in a list of features of a PC, they are all the same, and what they are NOT is the amount of space available on a hard drive or disk drive.
I can't say this enough: for Windows XP you really should try to upgrade, if you are not already there, to 1GB (one gigabyte) of memory. Windows XP has grown, anti-virus and spyware programs have grown and need to do more and consequently use more of your computer's available memory. Windows XP runs very well with 1GB of RAM. Less than that and you are probably one of the people calling me and complaining about how your computer is running slower.
With Windows Vista, you need to have at least 2GB of RAM. I recently serviced a very nice new laptop running Vista which had only 1GB of RAM and was running Vista Home Premium. Best Buy should be sued for selling such a machine! Get at least 2GB and, if you can afford to go to 3GB or 4GB, do it!
So many people get confused about the difference between RAM and the size of their hard disk drive (HDD). Most HDDs on newer machines are at least 120GB for a laptop and maybe 250GB or more on a desktop. Either of these is fine, but do yourself a favor and get the model with the largest HDD you can afford.
I have upgraded my desktop to a 250GB internal HDD with a 1TB (one terabyte) external hard drive. Photos, music, and videos take up a lot of space, and it's very nice to have an external drive on which I can save quarterly copies of all of My Documents.
One bonus of having an external hard drive which connects via a USB port is that the drive can be used as a portable device, meaning one day you can plug it into your desktop, back up all of your data, and the next day plug it into your laptop and back up all of its data. You can use it on as many machines as you have.
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