"to persist data"

[Evelyn Lee Barney]

That's an odd one!  The context seems to imply it means both to maintain the data, and to transfer it without alteration.  I hope someone here has a more accurate definition.

Ev

> 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?