While often confused, backup and archive serve different purposes:
Backup:

• Creates copies of active data for recovery purposes
• Data remains in primary location
• Short to medium-term retention
• Focus on business continuity
  Archive:
• Moves infrequently accessed data to long-term storage
• Data is removed from primary location
• Long-term retention (years or decades)
• Focus on compliance and storage optimization
  Example: Email backup keeps copies of current emails for quick recovery, while email archiving moves old emails to cheaper storage for compliance purposes.