what is secondary storage

Secondary storage refers to data storage that is accessed less frequently than data in primary storage. It is a non-volatile memory medium that preserves data until and unless it has been deleted or overwritten. Secondary storage can be hosted on-premises, on an external device, or in the cloud, and it is associated with external storage devices that are not directly connected to production servers. Examples of secondary storage devices include hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), tape drives, optical media, USB flash drives, and floppy disks. It is commonly used to store backup data that comes from primary storage.