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Backup media is often reused. With four cassettes swapped out weekly, each comes back every four weeks and the old backup on it is rewritten, so you keep about a month of backups. Rotation disposes of old backups automatically.
Archiving is different. The data comes off your systems, but you keep a record of it in case you ever need it, like tax records kept for years. You do not plan to use it again, but it is there.
Disposal is getting rid of data or media for good once nothing requires keeping it.
A retention plan uses all three: data stays in production for a time, in backup for a time, and sometimes in an archive, before it is disposed of.
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