storage

In a computer, storage is the place where data is held in an electromagnetic or optical form for access by a computer processor. There are two general usages.
1) Storage is frequently used to mean the devices and data connected to the computer through input/output operations - that is, hard disk and tape systems and other forms of storage that don't include computer memory and other in-computer storage. For the enterprise, the options for this kind of storage are of much greater variety and expense than that related to memory. This meaning is probably more common in the IT industry than meaning 2.
2) In a more formal usage, storage has been divided into: (1) primary storage, which holds data in memory (sometimes called random access memory or RAM

Learn More

• Storage Resources

) and other "built-in" devices such as the processor's L1 cache, and (2) secondary storage, which holds data on hard disks, tapes, and other devices requiring input/output operations