

Hot storage is fast and easily accessible, but comes at a higher cost compared to warm or cold storage. Generally, hot storage refers to local storage such as a hard drive or a portable flash drive, but it can also refer to some online cloud storage providers.Īn illustration of the different storage “temperatures.” This is the data you use regularly, like important documents, photos and project files. When we talk about hot storage, we generally mean instant-access storage that gives you access to your data with no delays. Off-site archival cloud storage (Amazon Glacier, Google Coldline), unplugged & encrypted hard drivesīusiness users or home users with lots of data Network-attached storage (NAS), remote file servers Standard hard drives, solid state drives, portable flash memory, easy-access cloud storage For archival data that you’re comfortable storing off-site, without immediate access (but for a lower cost), cold storage is what you need. If you need the data occasionally, but you’re happy to store it away from your PC, then warm storage is fine. If you need the data frequently or without delay, you need to store it on hot storage. Warm storage data might be needed less frequently, like older versions of files stored on an NAS drive.

Warm data storage sits in the middle of the two, with the data stored close enough for easy access, but with fewer financial hits than your hot storage data.

Cold storage will sit off-site on a service like Amazon Glacier, where it’s ready for you to access if it’s ever needed (see our Amazon Glacier review). This might include documents that are locally stored and regularly accessed, or documents that are quickly accessible online through a service like Google Drive (see our Google Drive review).Ĭold storage is the opposite this is data that you want to keep (probably off site and on slower equipment), but you rarely need to access, meaning cold data is less expensive to store than hot data. Hot storage refers to data that is frequently used and accessed, like documents on your hard drive, which means it requires faster (and more expensive) hardware. Review Visit IDrive Hot Storage vs Cold Storage vs Warm Storage

Online Storage or Online Backup: What's The Difference?.Time Machine vs Arq vs Duplicati vs Cloudberry Backup.
