There are several areas where electronic data can be volatile. The most obvious is that RAM is cleared when the system is powered down.
The following table shows the order of volatile data collection suggested by NIST.SP800-86, and why the data is considered volatile:
Volatile data sources and the priority for their preservation
Automation of these tasks will help an investigator to collect the data in a timely way, hopefully with the loss of as little data as possible.