"The name initrd is an abbreviation for “Initial RAM disk”. It’s a file, which includes the image of a file system. The idea is this: RAM disk (that is, a carefully selected chunk of memory which is visible for everyone else as just another data device - it could be described as a virtual hard drive) is kept in the computer memory. Its content is kept in the initrd file. Now the obvious question comes: why do all that? Why can’t we simply use the hard drive directly? Well we could, but the virtual drive has its indisputable benefits..."
