RAM is an abbreviation for Random Access Memory. This is a kind of computer memory, that, different from other storage devices such as hard disk drives or DVDs, permits the data to be accessed directly without reading the previous content stored within it. Anytime an application is started, it is stored inside the RAM, due to the fact that it could be accessed considerably quicker than if it was read from another media. With regards to the web hosting service itself, extra RAM means that more web applications can run simultaneously on a certain web server, particularly if they are resource-demanding and are accessed by a great number of of people concurrently. Not like a shared web hosting package in which the system resources of a certain account could be flexible and quite often depend on what other users consume too, a VPS has a guaranteed amount of RAM that can be used all the time. That memory is allocated to one hosting server only and shall not be used by other clients even in case it is not being used.