The Chrome browser mostly looks at the cache-control header from the response header; if this header has immutable it will store the response to disk. Memory cache is loaded from the RAM so that which is much faster than disk cache & Memory cache is not persisted while close the tab cache will be cleared but disk cache will be retained till that expires. This is one of the primary reasons why browsers have greater memory allotted to them.
You may also need to understand this Memory Cache vs Disk Cache
Refer HTTP Cache chart so that you can easily understand cache flows