Non-Volatile Storage (NVS)

Overview Of Non-Volatile Storage

Non-volatile storage, a.k.a. permanent storage, stores computer data permanently so that it is not lost when a computer is turned off; unlike computer memory which is volatile and its contents disappear once the computer is turn-off. NVS is a broad collection of technologies. Non-volatile storage technologies and devices vary widely in the manner of speed in which they transfer and retrieve data, whether communicating with an application, microprocessor or other type of device. They can also vary significantly in terms of cost, capacity, endurance and latency.

Some of the first non-volatile storage devices where tapes drives, then hard disk drives, and floppy disk drives. Magneto optical, SuperDiscs, Zip, and Jaz drives were short lived methods for increasing portable permanent storage mechanisms to store more data then had been previously available on floppy disk drives which came in 12", 8", 5 1/4", and 3 1/2" models. Tape drives are still popular for storing large back-ups of hard disk drives although external disc drives which offer as much as 16TB of storage are also quite popular for this purpose. Flash drives are also very popular portable NVS devices as are micro SD cards which are a form of solid state storage like solid state drives which are generally not as portable as SD cards.