Short Term Storage
Short term storage refers to temporary data storage mechanisms that hold information for brief periods, typically ranging from milliseconds to hours, to support immediate processing needs. It is commonly implemented using in-memory data structures like caches, session storage, or volatile memory, prioritizing speed and accessibility over long-term persistence. This concept is essential for optimizing application performance by reducing latency and database load for frequently accessed or transient data.
Developers should use short term storage when building applications that require fast data retrieval for user sessions, real-time processing, or caching frequently accessed data to improve responsiveness. It is particularly valuable in web development for managing session states, in distributed systems for caching query results, and in gaming or financial applications where low-latency access to temporary data is critical. Learning this concept helps in designing efficient systems that balance performance with resource management.