Why Content Archiving is so important in SharePoint

In the old days of SharePoint, we never really cared much about Archiving. With the abundance of local storage, we pretty much saved everything we had, whether it was 10 days or 10 years old. However, with the move to the cloud, we found ourselves with a greater need to archive certain content. And not just to save on storage costs. In this article, I would like to summarize a few key reasons for archiving content and list a few options for archiving.

Reason # 1: Storage Costs

This is probably the biggest reason for archiving. Cloud storage tends to be expensive. So the content from 10 years ago might not need to be accessed often, if at all. As such, there is really no business need to store it in SharePoint and pay for the SharePoint collaboration features when they will not be required.

Reason # 2: Data Accuracy

The content generated over the years by companies could be a brand-new file/document, or an improved version of an outdated one (e.g., a revised employee handbook or policy). By moving old content to a different location, we improve data accuracy and data quality of what remains in SharePoint.

Reason # 3: Better Search Experience

Kind of related to the above, when outdated content is archived, it is no longer “noise” in keyword searches. By archiving old content, we prioritize newer content and make it the focus of search.

Reason # 4: Smarter Copilot

This is somewhat a derivative of the previous reason. Assuming you moved the “old” stuff outside of SharePoint, the Copilot, by design, is grounded in newer content only, ignoring the archive, thus producing more relevant and accurate results.

Reason # 5: Retention Periods

Another reason for Archiving is that most common retention and record requirements usually require a company to retain content for a certain number of years (e.g., 3, 5, 7 years). In very rare cases, the content has to be kept forever (permanently). So once the retention period expires, there is no more incentive for a company to keep the content and pay for extra storage.

SharePoint Archiving Options

So, if you do need to archive data in SharePoint, what are your options?

1. Option 1: Keep in SharePoint if storage cost is not an issue, and disable from Search or Copilot
2. Option 2: Move to Azure Files
3. Option 3: Offload to a different cloud storage or local storage
4. Option 4: Sign up for a Microsoft Archive solution
5. Option 5: Use a third-party archive solution