Secondary storage is the result of primary storage being backed-up
by means of a replication or via different data protection strategies, thus
creating multiple copies of data in various silos.
Data moved to secondary storage generally do not need to be accessed
on a regular basis. The main benefits of a secondary storage are to
increase the performance of primary storage and to free-up space on primary storage.
Secondary storage is therefore used for long-term retention and protection of data that needs to remain accessible and must
be kept to meet legal requirements and internal policies.
Secondary storage includes file shares, data analysis, data stored in archives or in test and dev systems. This data can either be located within local IT environments or in private or public cloud environments.
In a nutshell, secondary storage represents a copy of primary data, which is often distributed within various silos and is critical for organisations, both in terms of accessibility and in terms of compliance.