Backup vs Archive | ProMAX ProTip 0038

Who decided that archive & backup are the same thing?! I don't know who decided this, but I've seen it for years. I'm guilty, I jumped on this bandwagon. We've made it like some fast food combo deal or something. This is terrible because they are two very different functions.

So let's clarify the difference between the two with some real life stories:

Backup is your insurance plan! The other day one of our developers came to our meeting and told us his laptop had went down and wouldn't boot back up. Our immediate response was "Do you have a backup?!" Luckily his system backs up to Onedrive every day so all we have to do is get him a new laptop, have him do a recovery and boom he's back up. See what I did there?

So that's why a backup is your insurance plan, it makes sure you're covered when something goes wrong. It makes sure that your business, personal files or whatever you need to backup doesn't suffer when technology fails or somebody makes a mistake. This could be a lot of different things: