Archive
Long-term storage of completed work in a form intended to remain readable for decades.
Measured in
TB
In depth
Archiving differs from backup in its time horizon: a backup guards against loss this year, an archive against obsolescence over decades. That means open formats, embedded metadata, documented structure and a migration plan — because the threat to a thirty-year-old archive is rarely disk failure and usually an unreadable format.
Examples in practice
An archive of DNG files with embedded metadata remains openable long after the original camera format loses support.