Storage devices are one of the core components of any computing device.

They store
virtually all of the data and applications on a computer, except for hardware firmware which is generally
managed through separate read-only memory or ROM.

Storage devices are available in different forms, depending on the type of underlying device. For
example, a standard computer has multiple storage devices including RAM, a cache, and a hard disk. The
same device may also have optical disk drives and externally connected USB drives.

There are two different types of storage devices:

Primary storage devices: Generally smaller in size, primary storage devices are designed to hold data
temporarily and are internal to the computer. They have the fastest data access speed. These types of
devices include RAM and cache memory.

Secondary storage devices: Secondary storage devices usually have larger storage capacity, and they
store data permanently. They can be either internal or external to the computer. These types of devices
include the hard disk, the optical disk drive and USB storage device.

Brief History of Storage Devices

In order to really understand what storage devices used to look like and what they look like now, it can
be helpful to look at a history of evolving storage devices in general.

Early storage devices were primitive mechanical systems based on items like punch cards and later,
magnetic tape. They presented binary through physical media.

These became largely obsolete when other digital media was created. First, there were floppy disks and
diskettes, then there were compact discs that could hold large amounts of binary in digital formats.

At the same time, computers and other devices continued to be made with primary hard drives, where a
traditional platter is read by an arm in order to read and write data.

Eventually, a new option emerged called the solid-state drive or SSD.

The New Paradigm: Solid-State Drives and Storage Devices

New solid-state drives and storage devices store data in a way that's different from the traditional
platter hard drive.

Solid-state storage involves running electrical currents through a substrate instead of using a spinning
hard drive platter. It eliminates some of the mechanical parts of the traditional hard drive. It also makes
the storage of digital information much more efficient.

New computers may have solid-state drives as a primary device. New flash drives and thumb drives use
solid-state storage for secondary devices.

At the same time, companies have been updating how they approach storage device engineering for
broader enterprise systems. Systems like Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) designs allow
companies to use a series of drives to store information in "slices."

Then the storage area network (SAN) evolved, which links together individual storage devices to provide
network storage. Something called "storage fabric" uses fiber channel switching to build network
storage for enterprise systems.

Cloud and Virtual Storage

One of the latest advances in storage media involves the cloud and virtualization. With modern systems,
users can store data virtually, rather than using physical hardware on-site. For example, Amazon Web
Services offers AWS S3, a type of object storage where instead of being stored in physical hard drive
devices, customers store data in virtual buckets. These types of innovations represent the frontier of
where storage media is going.

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