Is there a difference between archiving of information on an archive storage system and bulk storage?  This is not necessarily a silly question because there are IT operations where large, cheap storage (AKA bulk storage) is seen as the location to archive data.  It can be a very big risk to the company to believe that bulk storage is a suitable archive storage solution.  To understand why it could be a risk, the characteristics of archive storage and bulk storage need to be explained.

This paper covers characteristics of the two types of storage and their use and considerations for planning.