Drive or Driver : Let’s see What is drive and what is driver

The similarity between the words drive and driver is enough to confuse many people and Google shuffles search results. Both terms are used in computation for totally different elements. So it’s good to be aware. Here you will find out what is drive and what is driver, and learn to distinguish from each other.

What is drive?

In Information Technology, the term drive refers to one of the names used for storage drives such as hard drives, SSDs and thumb drives, as well as storage disk read drives such as CD, DVD and Blu-ray and memory cards.

In general, any storage unit attached to a computer is a drive; Although the term is used in similar products like cloud storage (“Google Drive” for example), it is falling out of favor and is less common to hear.

What is a driver?

Driver is the term used for device driver programs or computer components. Its function is to allow a printer, a video card, a built-in Wi-Fi modem on the motherboard or even a USB port to be recognized by the operating system, as well as provide means for them to function properly. In this type of use, the term “driver” makes sense since the program acts as the “driver” of the device or component.

Generally, a new computer component comes with a CD or an access link to the manufacturer’s website where drivers can be downloaded or installed.

In other cases, operating systems like Windows, macOS or Linux already come with the built-in drivers, just plug them in and use them. The benefit is that the system can update files on the manufacturer’s website as soon as the peripheral is recognized.

After all, drive or driver?

Both “drive” and “driver” are English terms and are used correctly, although each means something else entirely. Not to confuse anymore:

• Drive: storage unit or disc and memory card reader;
• Driver: Controller of a component or device of a computer.