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.