[en] We study the effect of internal and external noise on the phenomenon of resistive switching. We consider a non-harmonic external driving signal and provide a theoretical framework to explain the observed behavior in terms of the related Fokker–Planck equations. It is found that internal noise causes an enhancement of the resistive contrast and that noise proves to be advantageous when considering short driving pulses. In the case of external noise, however, noise only has the effect of degrading the resistive contrast. Furthermore, we find a relationship between the noise amplitude and the driving signal pulsewidth that constrains the persistence of the resistive state. In particular, results suggest that strong and short driving pulses favor a longer persistence time, an observation that may find applications in the field of high-integration high-speed resistive memory devices. (special issue on unsolved problems of noise in physics, biology and technology)