Here are a few resources that might help:
- remoteStorage article on the Unhosted Adventures blog
- Announcing reStore, a personal remoteStorage server for Node explains pretty well how it works exactly
You might have to ignore the bits and pieces that don’t interest you in these 2 articles.
In general, the difference is, that remoteStorage is made for the Web, to be used by client-side Web apps. That means, discovery via Webfinger, authorizations via OAuth, and data transport via simple GET/PUT/DELETE operations. Furthermore, we’re trying to standardize some of the commonly used data formats with remoteStorage modules, so that different apps can access the same data (e.g. contacts, pictures, notes, etc.). And then there’s a whole JavaScript client library, including the widget for connecting and syncing one’s storage from web apps, of course.
Hope this explains it a bit. Let me know, if I can be of any further help. Also, feel free to open more threads for any and all questions you might come up with!
P.S.: If you have some experience with Web technologies, the specification draft is actually quite readable as well.