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Archiving

Backup media rotation and archiving are two distinct data retention strategies that serve different purposes in an organization's overall data lifecycle plan. Archiving preserves records that are no longer in active use but must be retained for compliance or future reference.

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About this video

Backup media rotation is a common data management practice in which a fixed set of storage media is cycled on a regular schedule, with each pass overwriting the previous backup. This approach limits retention to a defined window — typically weeks or a few months — and provides a straightforward method for disposing of older data, since it is automatically replaced rather than requiring manual deletion. While effective for maintaining recent recovery points, rotation alone does not address situations where data must be preserved beyond that window without remaining in active production systems. That is where archiving becomes a critical component of a broader data lifecycle strategy. Archiving is the practice of retaining data that is no longer in regular use but must remain available for future reference, compliance requirements, or legal obligations. The retention period for an archive varies depending on regulatory or organizational requirements, but the defining characteristic is that the data is intentionally preserved rather than actively worked with. A comprehensive data retention and disposal plan maps out how long information exists at each stage — production, backup, and archive — before it is fully decommissioned, ensuring that organizations meet their obligations while managing storage resources effectively.

What you'll learn

Distinguish between backup media rotation, archiving, and data disposal as components of an organizational data retention plan

What's covered

Backup, Archiving & Disposal

Backup Media Reuse
- Rotating Media Example
  - Four cassettes rotated
  - Four-week cycle
- Old Backup Overwritten
- One Month Retention
Archiving
- Record Kept, Not Active
- Tax Records Example
  - Seven-year retention
- Rarely Accessed Reference
Disposal Plan Phases
- Production Retention Period
- Backup Retention Period
- Archive Retention Period

Key terms

Backup Media Rotation: A strategy where a fixed set of backup media is reused on a cyclical schedule, automatically overwriting older backups and limiting retention to the length of the rotation cycle.
Archiving: The process of moving data that is no longer actively used to long-term storage for retention purposes, preserving a record that can be retrieved if needed in the future.
Data Disposal: The process of permanently removing data from systems or media in a controlled manner as part of an organization's data retention plan.
Data Retention: The practice of storing data for a required period of time to meet legal, regulatory, or business obligations before secure disposal.

Topics

Archiving Data Retention Backup Media Rotation Data Disposal Data Lifecycle Compliance Storage Management

Transcript

When it comes to backup and backup media, what happens a lot of times is that we will back things up to a media, but then we'll reuse it later on down the road. For instance, maybe I have four of these cassettes, and when I switch this out every single week, every four weeks this comes back into play. So what ends up happening is I rewrite the old backup. Now I'm only keeping backup for about a month. This is a great solution for actually disposing of the old backups, because now it just automatically gets written over with the new backups.

But sometimes there are cases when we want to not really use the information anymore — it really needs to come off of our systems — but we do want a record of it in case we ever need it in the future. That's what archiving is.

Archiving

A great example of this is when you do your taxes. Typically what you're supposed to do with your taxes, after you're done, is keep a record, and you're supposed to keep it for a period of time. I think a lot of people that I've heard say it's about seven years that you're supposed to keep those tax records.

That's what archiving is. It's like keeping a record of it. Do you ever plan on using it again? No, not really. But it's there if we need to go back and look into it. That's the archive method.

So when we're coming up with a disposal plan of when we're getting rid of things, we're going to keep things in production for a certain period of time, we're going to keep things in a backup form for a certain period of time, and then we're going to keep things in an archive maybe for a certain period of time. There are different methods in which we would do this, but just know what this archive is, and that it's part of the plan that we're going to be rolling out and creating.

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