Near-Line Storage

Definition - What does Near-Line Storage mean?

Near-line storage is a type of storage medium that is external to a computer and provides quick and scalable access to storage devices/capacity within an IT environment. This term refers to any storage architecture, infrastructure or technology that resides between online and offline storage sources.

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Techopedia explains Near-Line Storage

Near-line storage is primarily used in enterprise-class data centers, data warehouses and IT environments. It is most often used to store data permanently and provide on-demand access to stored data, usually over a network/Internet connection. It cannot be immediately provisioned but doesn’t require any manual help as is required in removable or offline storage.

Near-line storage devices include massive array of idle disks (MAID), automated tape libraries and SATA based disk RAID systems.