Storage Device

Definition - What does Storage Device mean?

A storage device is any computing hardware that is used for storing, porting and extracting data files and objects. It can hold and store information both temporarily and permanently, and can be internal or external to a computer, server or any similar computing device.
A storage device may also be known as a storage medium.

Storage Device

Storage devices are one of the core components of any computing device. They store virtually all the data and applications on a computer, except hardware firmware. They are available in different form factors depending on the type of underlying device. For example, a standard computer has multiple storage devices including RAM, cache, a hard disk, an optical disk drive and externally connected USB drives.


There are two different types of storage devices:

• Primary Storage Devices: Generally smaller in size, are designed to hold data temporarily and are internal to the computer. They have the fastest data access speed, and include RAM and cache memory.
• Secondary Storage Devices: These usually have large storage capacity, and they store data permanently. They can be both internal and external to the computer, and they include the hard disk, compact disk drive and USB storage device.