Storage & Archival

What are you going to do with all the information you just digitized, but are done using? Sometimes you need to hold on to your electronic records for future reference or for legal reasons. Although this doesn't take up a lot of physical space it can still be cumbersome to have all these electronic files floating around. Here are three storage and archival terms that help explain what can be done with this data.

COLD – Computer Output to Laser Disc. COLD systems function to capture electronic print information and digital documents and store the information on optical disk or other storage. That data can be retrieved and printed as needed.

Digital Archive – Digital archiving is the long-term retention and management of historical digital assets that are no longer changing, but have been retained to satisfy regulatory compliance, corporate governance, litigation support, records management or data management requirements.

Document Retention -- Document Retention is the requirement to manage documents as they are created, maintained and ultimately destroyed. Deleting valueless documents saves space and time while reducing costs. With defined and enforced criteria for maintaining and destroying documents, organizations can avoid fines, penalties and other legal consequences for documents that are not kept long enough, destroyed improperly or stored too long.