Hard drives are storage devices inside computers that store the operating system, programs, and files. They use spinning disks to store large amounts of data, from 200GB to 1TB, and retain data until deleted. External hard drives can be plugged into computers via USB to provide additional storage and are used for backup or transferring large amounts of data between devices, though they are bulky. Memory sticks and memory cards are portable storage devices that plug into USB ports or card readers and range in size from 512MB to 32GB, allowing users to easily store and transfer photos, music, and other files.