File kept on/at the server? [duplicate]

You are saving files in the memory.

You are saving files to a storage device (flash drive, memory stick, CD).

You are saving files on or to a server.

So far, these are my experiences from reading various IT articles and documentations. I agree with Kris with the difficulty of explaining why. But I'm pretty sure that these are correct to the best of my knowledge.

Saving files to a server is tantamount to uploading files to it. There's a good explanation from this link.

You upload to the server.

You download from the server.

Having these said, I would recommend using to rather than on, but still I cannot explain this more precisely.

In American english parlance, files are saved "On" the server, not "to" it. They can be sent "to" a server, but they are kept/saved "on" it. I suspect that there is an inferred clause that's been omitted. The full statement ought to be, "the files are being saved on the server's hard drive", but over time the "hard drive" part has been dropped.

It must be on, because on connotes the motion of the file, at one place, being transferred to the server to be saved. To save the file at the server, it would have to already be there, in which case it would already be saved.