"to persist data"

[Nancy Allison]

I've just run across the expression "to persist data" -- I find it on the web as well as in the doc I've been asked to work on.

Here's a web example:
  
"Once we have validated, or failed to validate our data, we need to persist it. (Or at the very least we need to make the decisions not to persist it.) We have an number of ways to persist our data depending on the scope of the persistance. For a single webform, we may be persisting the information back into the form input fields. Or we may persist it to a session if we want to data to remain for the entirety of the user's visit. We may even persist it to a database for long term storage.\ "

While I understand that our geekier siblings are happy with this term, I'd like to stick with English as much as possible. (Is joke! Mostly.)  What does "to persist data" mean? To move it? To retain it unchanged? Is there a Regular English verb that expresses the same meaning?

Thanks.

--Nancy