We consider the coherent stimulated Raman process developing in an optically dense disordered atomic medium, which can also incoherently scatter the light over all outward directions. The Raman process is discussed in the context of a quantum memory
scheme and we point out the difference in its physical nature from a similar but not identical protocol based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We show that the Raman and EIT memory schemes do not compete but complement one another and each of them has certain advantages in the area of its applicability. We include in our consideration an analysis of the transient processes associated with switching the control pulse off or on and follow how they modify the probe pulse dynamics on the retrieval stage of the memory protocol.
