Nearline storage

The nearline storage system knows on which volume (cartridge) the data resides, and usually asks a robot to retrieve it from this physical location (usually: a tape library or optical jukebox) and put it into a tape drive or optical disc drive to enable access by bringing the data it contains online.

[5] Nearline tape and optical storage has the advantage of relatively longer lifespans compared to spinning hard drives, simply due to the storage media being idle and usually stored in protected dust-free enclosures when not in use.

Nearline hard drives may be used in personal or small business network-attached storage (NAS) systems, or as non-critical moderate-performance data storage on servers, where greater durability is required for the drive to operate continuously.

By comparison, standard hard drives are assumed to only be in operation for a few hours each day, and are not spinning when the computer is either turned off or in sleep mode.

Standard hard drives may also use data caching methods that can improve single-drive performance, but would interfere with the operation of multi-drive RAID storage systems, potentially causing data loss or corruption.