Mass Storage

Mass Storage is any data storage medium that retains its contents permanently. Typically slower, less compact and more power hungry than RAM, but far cheaper and more capacious, and unlike RAM they generally do not require constant power to retain their data. Some mass storage devices are Read Only Memory (these are also referred to as Write Once, Read Many, or WORM, formats), but many are fully rewriteable.

Mass storage is the main factor of loading times in games. Different types have different speeds. Typically optical based storage (CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc) are the slowest, but inexpensive to produce. Flash memory is much faster, but typically very expensive to produce.

Examples include the Magnetic Disk, Optical Disc (CD and DVD,) memory carts, and Flash Memory (which, interestingly enough, is actually a very electricity efficient eraseable ROM format).