Salesforce Data Archiving Guide: Strategy, Storage, Retention & Best Practices

Salesforce is built to keep business data close to the teams using it every day. The problem starts when "every day" turns into "the last ten years." Closed Cases, old Opportunities, completed Activities, EmailMessages, attachments, contracts, and custom-object records can continue accumulating long after their operational value has dropped. This guide explains how to decide what should stay active, what should move into an archive, how retention and access should work, where archived data can live, and how organizations can build a scalable approach without losing the history they still need.

What Is Salesforce Data Archiving?

Salesforce data archiving is the strategic process of offloading inactive, historical, or read-only records from production storage into lower-cost native or external cloud databases while preserving data context, parent-child relationships, searchability, and compliance retention rules.  Also its designed around managing the lifecycle of data that no longer needs to remain operationally active.

Think about a customer who has been with your company for eight years.

See how smarter Salesforce archiving works Check it out!

Their Salesforce account may have hundreds of Cases, thousands of Activities, old Opportunities, contracts, emails, attachments, and custom records connected to that account. Your support team may only work with the most recent Cases, but the older records haven't suddenly become worthless.

A compliance team may need them. A sales rep may want the historical relationship. An auditor may ask for them. A customer may raise an issue that goes back several years.

That distinction is the foundation of archiving.

Salesforce describes archiving as a way to move inactive data out of the production environment while preserving access for longer-term needs such as compliance, auditing, and historical reference. Its current Archive capabilities also support policies for inactive records, files, and attachments, along with access and restoration controls.

Archive vs Delete vs Backup

These three approaches solve different problems.

Salesforce's own guidance makes this distinction clear: backups are designed for recovery, while archiving is designed to manage inactive data and long-term retention. The two are complementary rather than interchangeable.

A simple way to remember it:

Backup asks: "How do we recover if something goes wrong?"

Archive asks: "How do we keep old data without making our production system carry all of it?"

Delete asks: "Do we still have a valid reason to keep this data at all?"

A Salesforce Data Lifecycle

A healthy Salesforce data lifecycle usually looks something like this:

Create → Use → Maintain → Become inactive → Archive → Retain → Review → Purge when permitted

A Real-World Example

Imagine a Salesforce org with 10 years of customer service history. The last 18 months are used constantly, while older records are rarely accessed but still valuable.

Deleting that history creates risk. Keeping everything in production adds storage, performance, and cost pressure.

Salesforce archiving offers a middle ground: move older data to an appropriate archive while preserving relationships, metadata, retention rules, and access when needed.

DataArchiva supports this through Salesforce Big Objects or external storage such as AWS, Azure, GCP, Heroku, and on-premises infrastructure with DataArchiva Pro. It also supports policy-based archiving, search, reporting, restore, retention, and controlled access.

The goal is simple: manage active and historical data differently because they serve different purposes.

Why Archive Data in Salesforce?

As a Salesforce org grows, so does its data. Cases, Opportunities, Activities, EmailMessages, files, and custom records can quickly build up, even when much of that data is rarely used.

Archiving helps organizations separate active data from historical data instead of treating everything the same.

1. Control Data Growth

Salesforce data keeps accumulating over time. Archiving older, inactive records helps prevent production storage from becoming overloaded in order to control Salesforce data growth.

2. Keep Production Focused

Users and automation mainly need current data. Moving inactive records out of everyday workloads can help keep production focused on operational data.

3. Avoid Unnecessary Deletion

Old records may still be needed for audits, disputes, reporting, customer history, or compliance. Archiving preserves that information without keeping everything in active storage.

4. Manage Storage Costs

Buying additional native Salesforce storage costs up to $125/GB/month for Data Storage and $5/GB/month for File Storage (standard list pricing). Archiving inactive records to external storage like AWS S3 or Azure Blob reduces long-term storage overhead by up to 80-90% while keeping performance unhindered.

5. Create a Data Lifecycle

A good Salesforce archiving strategy defines what stays active, what gets archived, how long it is retained, and how it can be accessed later.

Five Reasons to Archive

1. Control data growth.

2. Keep production focused.

3. Manage storage pressure.

4. Preserve historical data.

5. Build a repeatable data lifecycle.

Where DataArchiva Fits

DataArchiva is designed around this exact lifecycle problem.

Organizations can define which objects should be archived, establish criteria and schedules, preserve relationships, search historical information, report on archived data, and restore records when necessary. Depending on the architecture, data can remain within the Salesforce ecosystem or move to external cloud or on-premises storage.

Archive By Relevance, Retention, And Relationship, Not Just Age Find it on AppExchange!

The useful part isn't simply having another place to put records.

It is having a repeatable system for deciding what stays active and what doesn't.

Benefits of Salesforce Data Archiving

The Salesforce data archiving benefits go beyond freeing up storage. A good archive helps organizations manage data based on how often it is used, how long it must be retained, and how it needs to be accessed.

Read more: Top Benefits of Salesforce Data Archiving With DataArchiva

Storage Optimization

Archiving moves inactive records out of production storage, helping organizations optimise growing data volumes. DataArchiva supports both Salesforce Big Objects and external destinations such as cloud or on-premises storage.

Better Performance

Large volumes of inactive data can add pressure to Salesforce workloads. Archiving reduces the amount of historical data sitting in the active environment, helping keep production focused on operational records.

Easier Compliance

Archived data can still be subject to retention, access, and deletion requirements. A structured archive helps organizations apply retention policies, access controls, and controlled purging instead of simply deleting old records for easier compliance.

Scalability

As data grows, organizations need a lifecycle strategy rather than keeping every record active forever. Archiving allows historical data to grow without putting the same operational burden on production.

Historical Accessibility

Archived doesn't mean inaccessible. Users may still need older Cases, customer records, or documents. DataArchiva provides search, reporting, and restore capabilities so authorized users can access historical information when needed.

In short: archive less-used data, keep production focused, and make historical information available when it matters.

Business Impact At A Glance

Where DataArchiva fits

DataArchiva brings these benefits together rather than treating archiving as a one-time migration.

Its current solution supports lifecycle management, data classification, configurable retention, multimedia archiving, relationship preservation, search, reporting, restore, and external integrations.

That makes the product relevant not just when storage is already high, but when an organization wants a more deliberate long-term operating model.

Archiving vs Buying Storage: A Breakdown of Data Archiving Costs in Salesforce Get it for free!

Common Salesforce Data Archiving Challenges

Salesforce data archiving isn't just about moving old records. The real challenge is deciding what to archive, how to preserve it, and how users will access it later.

Also Read: Salesforce External Data Archiving – Challenges & Solutions

1. Identifying What to Archive

Age alone isn't enough. In order to identify what to archive, you need to consider last activity, business status, access frequency, compliance requirements, storage usage, and record relationships.

2. Preserving Relationships

Salesforce data structures rely heavily on complex hierarchies. Archiving parent records without cascading logic breaks Master-Detail and Lookup relationship integrity, causing orphaned child records (Task, Attachment, ContentDocument, or custom objects). A robust archive solution must preserve system fields like CreatedById, RecordTypeId, and original Id references across multi-tiered object trees. 

3. Keeping Data Accessible

Archived data still needs to be useful. Users should know where it lives, who can access it, how to search it, and how restoration works. DataArchiva provides search, reporting, and restore capabilities.

4. Managing Retention

Not every record needs the same retention period. Organizations need clear rules for retention, access, and eventual purging based on business and compliance requirements.

5. Maintaining Security

Archived data still requires protection. Encryption, role-based access, authentication, audit trails, and controlled restore or purge permissions should remain part of the strategy.

6. Reducing Migration Risk

Large-scale archiving involves more than moving records. Relationships, files, metadata, IDs, field mappings, and failed records all need to be validated before production migration.

7. Controlling Automation

Automated archiving can save time, but incorrect rules can create repeated mistakes. Test policies first, monitor archive jobs, and review changes regularly.

Challenge → Solution

How DataArchiva helps

DataArchiva addresses these challenges through configurable policies, relationship preservation, scheduled or manual archiving, search, reporting, restore, retention controls, encryption, and governance capabilities.

The important point is that these capabilities work together. Archiving isn't simply moving records.

It's managing what happens to those records throughout their remaining lifecycle.

Salesforce Data Archiving Best Practices

Good Salesforce data archiving best practices come down to having clear rules for what gets archived, where it goes, who can access it, and when it can be removed.

1. Start With Governance

Involve the right teams, including IT, security, legal, compliance, sales, and service. Assign clear ownership for archive policies and decisions.

2. Define Retention First

Set retention periods before migration. Different objects may need different rules based on business and compliance requirements.

3. Preserve Relationships

Map parent-child relationships, Files, EmailMessages, Activities, and other related records. Archived data should retain the context users need.

4. Protect Archived Data

Use appropriate controls for viewing, exporting, restoring, and purging archived information.

5. Test Before Production

Test archive rules, relationships, files, search, reporting, restore, and failure handling in a sandbox before going live.

6. Monitor and Review

Track archive jobs, failures, storage reduction, restores, retention, and policy changes. Review policies regularly as business needs change.

Quick Checklist

Before: Identify high-volume data, define criteria, map relationships, set retention, and choose storage.

During: Test policies, run controlled batches, validate data, and monitor failures.

After: Monitor jobs, test restoration, review access, and update policies when needed.

DataArchiva supports these lifecycle activities through configurable policies, scheduling, relationship preservation, search, reporting, restore, retention, and governance features.

Salesforce Data Archiving Strategy

A practical Salesforce data archiving strategy should answer five questions:

1. What data do we have?

2. What needs to stay active?

3. What should be archived?

4. How long should it be retained?

5. How will users access it later?

A Five-Step Framework

1. Assess
Review storage usage, fast-growing objects, file volumes, access patterns, and existing retention requirements.

2. Classify
Separate data into active, inactive, historical, regulated, and disposable categories.

3. Define Retention
Set retention periods based on business, legal, compliance, and privacy requirements.

4. Choose the Architecture
Decide between Salesforce-native storage, Big Objects, cloud storage, on-premises infrastructure, or a specialized archiving platform.

5. Archive and Monitor
Implement archive policies and track storage reduction, relationships, search, retention, and restoration.

The goal isn't simply to move old records. It's to create a repeatable data lifecycle where active data stays operational and historical data remains available when needed.

How to Identify Data for Archiving

Deciding what data to archive in Salesforce shouldn't be based on age alone. A record may be old but still important to the business.

Look at these signals together:

Age

Use criteria such as last modified more than 24 months ago as a starting point, not a final rule.

Activity

Check how often records are accessed or used by automation, reports, and integrations.

Business Value

Consider whether the data relates to active customers, contracts, disputes, reporting, or ongoing service obligations.

Compliance

Identify records with specific retention or deletion requirements before archiving them.

Storage Consumption

Target high-volume standard objects first by running Storage Usage reports on Task, Event, EmailMessage, CaseHistory, and FieldHistoryArchive, which typically consume 60–80% of total org storage in mature Salesforce environments.

Relationships

Check whether inactive records are connected to active Accounts, Cases, Files, Activities, or custom objects.

Access Frequency

Ask the simplest question: When was this record last actually needed?

The best archive candidates are usually records that are inactive, low-access, no longer operationally critical, and eligible under your retention rules.

Archive Policies & Retention Rules

Salesforce data retention and archiving are related, but they aren't the same thing.

Archiving answers:

"Where should inactive data live?"

Retention answers:

"How long should we keep it?"

You need both.

Imagine a financial services company archives customer records after they become inactive.

That solves the storage problem.

But the company still needs to know whether those records should remain available for five years, seven years, ten years, or another period based on its applicable requirements.

That's retention.

Retention Is Not The Same As Storage

A retention rule should have a reason behind it.

For example:

These are examples, not universal retention periods.

Organizations should establish actual retention requirements with the appropriate legal, compliance, privacy, and business stakeholders.

Retention vs Purge

Salesforce distinguishes retention policies from purge policies. Retention establishes how long archived data should be kept, while purge policies can provide additional criteria for permanently removing records from the archive.

That distinction is important.

Archive doesn't mean keep forever.

A mature lifecycle includes the eventual end of the data's useful or required life.

DataArchiva supports configurable retention and purging so organizations can manage archived information throughout its lifecycle.

How Often Should You Archive Salesforce Data?

There isn't one universal Salesforce archiving frequency.

Some organizations may archive monthly. Others may run quarterly or annual jobs. High-growth environments may need much more frequent automation.

The right schedule depends on:

• Data growth rate.

• Storage pressure.

• Business activity.

• Compliance requirements.

• Access patterns.

• Archive volume.

• Operational workload.

Monthly Archiving

A monthly schedule can work well when data grows steadily, and the organization wants a predictable cleanup cycle.

Quarterly Archiving

Quarterly can make sense when historical data doesn't accumulate quickly enough to justify monthly processing.

Annual Archiving

Annual archiving is usually more appropriate for slower-moving data or specific historical datasets.

Continuous Or Frequent Automation

High-volume organizations may benefit from more frequent automation so inactive data doesn't sit in production for months after becoming eligible.

The important thing isn't picking the most frequent schedule.

It's choosing a schedule that keeps the lifecycle predictable without creating unnecessary operational overhead.

DataArchiva supports automated, scheduled archiving as well as manual approaches, allowing organizations to align archive jobs with their data lifecycle.

Navigating Compliance and Cost in Salesforce Archiving Find out how!

Automating Salesforce Data Archiving

Manual archiving works until the volume becomes too large or the process becomes too repetitive.

That's when Salesforce automated data archiving becomes useful.

Instead of asking an admin to manually identify and move records every quarter, organizations can define rules that run on a schedule.

The process can look like:

Define criteria → Validate → Schedule → Archive → Monitor → Report

Salesforce's current Archive capabilities support scheduled policies that automatically move qualifying data based on defined criteria.

Manual vs Automated

Automation doesn't remove the need for humans. It moves humans into the role they should have:

designing, validating, governing, and monitoring the lifecycle.

DataArchiva supports scheduled archive jobs, configurable policies, relationship preservation, search, reporting, and restore.

For organizations that want archiving to become part of normal Salesforce operations rather than another quarterly fire drill, that distinction matters.

Salesforce Data Archiving Architecture

A practical Salesforce data archiving architecture separates active data from historical data while keeping archived information accessible.

Salesforce Production → Archive Layer → Storage → Search / Reporting / Retrieval

The archive layer manages policies for what moves, when it moves, how long it stays, and how users access it later.

Native vs. External Architecture

Native: Archived data stays within the Salesforce ecosystem. DataArchiva supports this approach using Salesforce Big Objects.

External: Historical data is moved to external storage such as AWS, Azure, GCP, Heroku, or on-premises infrastructure through DataArchiva Pro.

Regardless of the architecture, the archive should preserve the data, relationships, files, security, retention rules, and access needed for retrieval or restore.

The key is to choose an architecture that fits your data volume, access needs, compliance requirements, and infrastructure.

Native Salesforce vs External Data Archiving

The decision between Salesforce native vs external archiving isn't about which architecture is universally better.

It's about what your organization needs from its archive.

Salesforce itself now offers an Archive app designed to move inactive data out of the production environment, while DataArchiva supports both native and external models.

When Native Can Make Sense

A native model can be attractive when:

• Salesforce is the primary data environment.

• Users need Salesforce-centric access.

• External infrastructure isn't required.

• The archive volume fits the chosen architecture.

• The organization wants fewer external systems.

When External Can Make Sense

External storage may make more sense when:

• Data volumes are large.

• The organization already operates cloud infrastructure.

• Data ownership requirements favor customer-controlled storage.

• Multiple systems need access.

• Analytics or BI platforms need historical data.

• On-premises storage is required.

DataArchiva's ability to support both approaches gives organizations room to choose based on their architecture rather than forcing every customer into the same storage model.

Where Should Archived Salesforce Data Be Stored?

The question of where to store archived Salesforce data depends on the organization's technical, security, compliance, and financial requirements.

There isn't one universal destination.

Salesforce

Keeping archived information within the Salesforce ecosystem can simplify access and management.

It's worth considering when Salesforce remains the main system users need.

AWS

AWS can be appropriate for organizations with existing AWS infrastructure, cloud governance, and data lake or analytics strategies.

Azure

Azure can fit organizations already standardized on Microsoft infrastructure, identity, security, and analytics services.

Google Cloud

Google Cloud can be relevant for organizations with existing GCP environments or analytics architectures.

On-premises

Some organizations need direct control over where historical information physically resides because of internal policy, data residency, or infrastructure requirements.

Specialized archive platforms

A specialized archiving platform can provide lifecycle controls, relationships, search, reporting, restore, retention, and governance without forcing the organization to build every capability from scratch.

Decision matrix

DataArchiva Pro supports external archiving to AWS, Azure, GCP, Heroku, and on-premises environments, while DataArchiva also provides a native Big Objects option.

Best Practices for Enterprise Salesforce Archiving

Enterprise Salesforce data archiving becomes a different challenge once you have huge volumes, multiple business units, complex integrations, and strict governance.

At that point, the archive can't depend on one admin's knowledge.

It needs architecture.

Build Policies Around Business Rules

Enterprise policies should be understandable outside the IT team.

"Archive records where LastModifiedDate is older than X" may be technically precise, but business owners should know what that actually means.

Design For Relationships

Large Salesforce environments often have complex object relationships. Your archive should account for those dependencies before moving data.

Separate Retention From Storage

Storage tells you where data lives. Retention tells you how long it should live.

Don't confuse the two.

Make Monitoring Part Of The Architecture

At enterprise scale, failed jobs can represent thousands or millions of records. Monitoring isn't optional.

Design For Restore

You don't want your first restoration test to happen during an urgent customer escalation. Test it beforehand.

Consider Disaster Recovery

Archiving doesn't replace backup.

Salesforce explicitly distinguishes the role of backups for recovery from the role of archiving for long-term inactive data management.

Enterprise organizations generally need both strategies working together.

DataArchiva supports large-scale lifecycle management through automated archiving, external storage options, search, reporting, restore, retention, and governance controls.

Common Salesforce Data Archiving Mistakes

The most dangerous Salesforce data archiving mistakes aren't always technical.

Some are planning mistakes.

Mistake 1: Archiving Based Only On Age

"Older than two years" sounds clean. It may also be wrong. A record can be old and still active from a business perspective.

Better approach: combine age with activity, business value, relationships, and compliance.

Mistake 2: Treating Archive As Backup

An archive isn't a disaster-recovery copy.

A backup is designed to help recover from accidental deletion, corruption, or other loss scenarios. An archive is designed around long-term management of inactive information.

Better approach: maintain backup and archive strategies separately.

Mistake 3: Breaking Relationships

Moving the parent record without related children creates incomplete history.

Better approach: map relationships before migration.

Mistake 4: Making Archived Data Impossible To Find

If users need IT every time they need a historical record, adoption drops.

Better approach: provide search and reporting.

Mistake 5: No Retention Policy

"Keep it forever" isn't a strategy.

Better approach: define retention and approved purge rules.

Mistake 6: Automating Without Testing

A bad manual process is annoying. A bad automated process can be enormous.

Better approach: test policies in a sandbox, validate results, then automate.

Salesforce itself recommends validating Archive configurations in a sandbox before deploying policies.

Mistake 7: Ignoring Files

Organizations often focus on records while forgetting how much storage can sit in files and attachments.

Salesforce's current Archive capabilities specifically include inactive records, files, and attachments.

Mistake 8: Forgetting Governance

Someone should own every policy.

DataArchiva supports role-based access, retention, governance, data lineage, and controlled restoration capabilities to help organizations formalize that ownership.

Archive vs Backup

Salesforce archive vs backup is one of the most common points of confusion.

They may both involve storing data outside the primary operational workflow, but their goals are different.

Backup

Backup is about recovery. Imagine an admin accidentally updates 50,000 records. Or a user deletes something important. Or data becomes corrupted.

A backup gives the organization a recovery point.

Salesforce's 2026 backup guidance specifically describes backups as part of a routine data protection strategy for recovering from accidental deletion or unwanted changes.

Archive

Archiving is about lifecycle management.

Imagine an organization has 10 years of closed Cases. There hasn't been a disaster. Nothing is missing.

The problem is that those old records don't need to remain part of the active operational dataset. That's an archive problem.

The simple distinction

Backup = recover from something going wrong.

Archive = manage something that has naturally become inactive.

You can need both.

DataArchiva itself is focused on the archiving side of this equation, while XfilesPro's broader product portfolio includes separate backup and recovery capabilities.

Archive vs Delete

Salesforce archive vs delete comes down to whether the information still has value or a reason to be retained.

Deletion is permanent once applicable recovery mechanisms and retention windows have passed.

Archiving keeps historical information available.

Archive when:

• The data still has business value.

• The data must be retained.

• Users may need historical access.

• Auditability matters.

• The data is inactive rather than useless.

Delete when:

• The retention period has ended.

• The organization has no legitimate reason to retain it.

• Applicable legal, privacy, and governance requirements permit deletion.

• The organization has approved the deletion.

The important thing is not to treat deletion as the default solution for storage growth.

If the information still matters, deletion solves the storage problem by creating a data problem.

DataArchiva supports retention and purge controls so organizations can distinguish between moving data into a retained archive and permanently removing data when approved.

Archive vs Big Objects

Salesforce archiving vs Big Objects requires a little nuance because Big Objects can be part of an archiving architecture.

Salesforce Big Objects are designed for storing very large amounts of data within the Salesforce ecosystem.

The question is not simply whether Big Objects can hold historical information.

The question is whether they provide the combination of storage, access, reporting, lifecycle management, governance, and operational experience your organization needs.

Big Objects Can Make Sense When

• Data should remain within Salesforce.

• The organization has technical Salesforce expertise.

• The data model fits Big Objects.

• The organization can manage the implementation.

A Specialized Archive Can Make Sense When

• You need policy-driven lifecycle management.

• Users need easier historical search.

• You need broader storage choices.

• You want configurable retention.

• You need restore and reporting capabilities.

• You want to reduce implementation overhead.

DataArchiva provides a native Big Objects archiving option while also offering external archiving through cloud and on-premises destinations.

That gives organizations a choice between architectures instead of treating Big Objects and external archiving as mutually exclusive concepts.

Archive vs Buying More Salesforce Storage

Salesforce archiving vs buying storage is ultimately a business decision.

Buying more capacity can be reasonable.

If the data is active and users genuinely need it in Salesforce, more storage may be exactly what you need.

But if a large portion of the storage consists of inactive historical records, simply buying more capacity can postpone the same conversation.

Buy More Storage When:

• Data is actively used.

• The organization needs it in Salesforce.

• The growth is temporary.

• The operational value justifies the cost.

• Archiving would create unnecessary complexity.

Consider Archiving When:

• A significant volume is inactive.

• Historical data still needs to be retained.

• Storage keeps growing.

• Users rarely access older records.

• You need a formal data lifecycle.

• You want to separate operational and historical workloads.

Salesforce itself lists archiving as an alternative to additional storage for certain use cases.

DataArchiva can help organizations quantify which data could move out of production and choose between native or external archive architectures.

Choosing the Right Salesforce Data Archiving Solution

Choosing a Salesforce data archiving solution shouldn't start with a vendor shortlist.

Start with your requirements.

1. Scalability

Can the solution handle today's data volume? More importantly, can it handle the next three to five years?

2. Automation

Can policies run automatically? Can you schedule them? Can administrators monitor them?

3. Relationship Preservation

Can parent-child relationships survive archival? What happens to Files, EmailMessages, Activities, and custom objects?

4. Security

Look for:

• Encryption.

• Role-based access.

• Permission controls.

• Audit trails.

• Data residency options.

5. Retention

Can you define retention periods? Can different datasets have different policies? Can you eventually purge data?

6. Accessibility

Can users search archived records? Can they report on them? Can they restore them?

7. Storage Flexibility

Can the solution support Salesforce-native storage, cloud infrastructure, or on-premises environments where required?

8. Implementation

Ask:

• How long does deployment take?

• How much code is required?

• Who maintains it?

• What does migration involve?

• How are failed jobs handled?

9. Total Cost

Don't look only at license price.

Consider:

• Salesforce storage.

• External storage.

• Implementation.

• Administration.

• Migration.

• Maintenance.

• Compliance.

• User productivity.

10. Vendor Maturity

Look for:

• Product documentation.

• Security information.

• Customer examples.

• Support model.

• Salesforce ecosystem presence.

• Clear product ownership.

Where DataArchiva fits

DataArchiva provides native and external archiving options, policy-based lifecycle management, relationship preservation, search, reporting, restoration, retention controls, and support for cloud and on-premises storage architectures.

The right question isn't whether DataArchiva has the most features.

It's whether its architecture and capabilities match the organization's requirements.

Questions to Ask Before Buying a Data Archiving Solution

Choosing Salesforce archive software isn't just about checking feature boxes. You need to understand how the solution handles your data, relationships, retention, security, access, architecture, implementation, and pricing.

Before making a decision, use our Salesforce Data Archiving Checklist to evaluate vendors and compare solutions against your organization's requirements.

The goal is simple: make sure the solution fits your data volume, business requirements, security needs, and long-term data lifecycle.

Salesforce Data Archiving ROI

Storage savings are only part of the picture. A proper ROI calculation should also account for data growth, admin time, cleanup effort, and the cost of maintaining inactive data in Salesforce. Use the example below to see how those numbers can add up.

Salesforce Data Archiving ROI Calculator

Estimated Archive Volume: 300 GB
Storage Avoided: 300 GB
Annual Cost Difference: $3,500
Estimated Payback: < 1 year

Example only. Actual results vary based on storage pricing, archive costs, growth, and implementation.

Salesforce Data Archiving for Financial Services

Financial services organizations often deal with large historical datasets, strict retention requirements, customer records, transactions, documents, and audit requests.

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The challenge isn't simply storing old information.

It's keeping historical data:

Available, Controlled, Traceable, and Retained for the appropriate period.

A closed financial record may no longer belong in an active operational workflow, but it can still matter years later.

That makes financial services a strong use case for lifecycle-based archiving.

Typical Use Cases

• Historical customer records.

• Closed Cases.

• Account history.

• Financial transactions.

• Contracts.

• Compliance records.

• Customer communications.

• Documents and attachments

DataArchiva can support financial-services use cases through configurable retention, controlled access, relationship preservation, search, reporting, and external storage options.

Before → Problem → Archive strategy → Data volume → Retention → Result

This is a stronger trust signal than generic claims.

Salesforce Data Archiving for Healthcare

Healthcare environments can contain sensitive customer, patient, service, and operational information that must be managed carefully.

The important distinction is that historical doesn't mean disposable.

An old record may still be required for legal, operational, analytical, or continuity reasons.

An American Healthcare Claims Immunity For 80 GB Of Salesforce Data With DataArchiva On AWS Cloud. Get it in 20 seconds!

Healthcare archiving should therefore consider:

• Access controls.

• Retention.

• Data security.

• Auditability.

• Historical accessibility.

• Relationship preservation.

Organizations should determine applicable requirements with their legal and compliance teams rather than assuming one retention period applies to every dataset.

DataArchiva provides role-based access, encryption, retention, search, restore, and governance capabilities that can support healthcare data lifecycle requirements.

Salesforce Data Archiving for Manufacturing

Manufacturing companies can build substantial Salesforce histories around customers, sales, service, assets, orders, warranties, and long-running account relationships.

A service record from six years ago may not matter to today's queue.

But if a customer asks about a recurring equipment problem, that historical record suddenly matters.

Read More: Manufacturer of Automation Supplies Turns Key Operations for Salesforce Storage Management To DataArchiva by Connecting Azure to Archive Legacy Emails

Common Manufacturing Archive Candidates

• Closed service Cases.

• Historical Opportunities.

• Asset history.

• Warranty records.

• Orders.

• Customer interactions.

• Completed service activities.

• Product records.

The goal is to retain the historical context without forcing every historical record to remain part of the same operational workload.

DataArchiva can support this through object-level policies, relationship preservation, external storage, historical search, reporting, and restore.

Salesforce Data Archiving for Government

Government and public-sector organizations often manage records over long periods.

That can create a difficult combination:

Long retention + large data volumes + strict access requirements.

A practical archive strategy should consider:

• Record retention.

• Data sovereignty.

• Access controls.

• Auditability.

• Historical retrieval.

• Security.

• Approved destruction.

The exact requirements vary by jurisdiction and agency, so archive policies should be aligned with applicable public-sector rules rather than using generic retention assumptions.

DataArchiva's support for controlled access, retention, governance, auditability, and on-premises storage can be relevant where infrastructure and data-location requirements are important.

Customer Success Stories & Real-World Use Cases

U.S. Healthcare Provider: Archiving 1M+ Salesforce Records to AWS

Company context:
A U.S.-based healthcare provider used Salesforce for five years to manage growing volumes of customer and operational data across its expanding network of clinics.

The problem:
Salesforce data had grown to 203 GB, creating pressure around storage, historical record access, compliance, and day-to-day operations. The organization also needed to retain records for 7 years while keeping historical data accessible to users.

Why the old approach wasn't enough:
Simply keeping everything in Salesforce was creating a growing storage burden. At the same time, moving records out without preserving relationships or easy access could disrupt customer service, reporting, and compliance workflows.

The archive strategy:
The organization implemented DataArchiva to archive Salesforce standard and custom object records to an RDBMS database hosted on AWS EC2. The initial project archived 80 GB of Salesforce data while maintaining access to historical records from within Salesforce.

Implementation:
DataArchiva preserved existing master-detail and lookup relationships during archiving. Users could find archived records through the DataArchiva Find Module and Global Search, while reporting capabilities provided access to archived data for analysis and compliance activities. The implementation was first validated in a UAT environment before production deployment.

Results:

• 1M+ Salesforce records archived.

• 80 GB of Salesforce data archived.

• 7-year record retention requirement supported.

• Historical records remained searchable and accessible from Salesforce.

• Master-detail relationships preserved.

Business impact:
The archive strategy reduced pressure on Salesforce storage while keeping historical healthcare records available when needed. It also supported audits, reporting, trend analysis, and faster access to historical information without requiring the organization to keep its entire data history in the production Salesforce environment.

Top Salesforce Data Archiving Solutions (2026)

When comparing Salesforce archiving tools in 2026, the right approach is to evaluate the problem each product solves, how it handles historical data, where that data lives, and how much control organizations have over the lifecycle.

A vendor list without methodology isn't particularly useful.

Evaluation Methodology

Evaluate each solution across:

• Archiving model.

• Storage destination.

• Automation.

• Retention.

• Relationship preservation.

• Search and access.

• Restore.

• Reporting.

• Security.

• Compliance.

• Scalability.

• Integrations.

• Implementation.

• Pricing approach.

• Ideal customer profile.

DataArchiva

DataArchiva provides native Salesforce archiving using Big Objects and external archiving through AWS, Azure, GCP, Heroku, and on-premises environments through DataArchiva Pro. Its product page also lists configurable lifecycle management, retention, relationship preservation, search, reporting, restore, data governance, and integration capabilities.

Best fit: Organizations looking for flexible native or external archiving with lifecycle, access, governance, and reporting capabilities.

Salesforce Archive

Salesforce's current Archive offering is designed to help organizations move inactive records, files, and attachments out of production, create automated archive policies, manage retention, access archived records, and restore records.

Best fit: Organizations looking for a Salesforce-provided archive capability integrated closely with the Salesforce platform.

Other Tools

For any additional vendor included in the final published comparison, evaluate its current product documentation and pricing rather than relying on outdated feature lists.

That matters because the Salesforce archiving market is changing quickly, and product capabilities can change between annual comparison articles.

Don't Rank Vendors Only By Features

A feature checklist doesn't tell you whether a product fits your architecture.

• For a high-volume enterprise, that could mean external storage and governance.

• For a Salesforce-centric organization, native access may matter more.

• For a regulated organization, retention and auditability may dominate the decision.

• For a fast-growing business, automation and predictable cost may matter most.

That is why the evaluation framework matters more than a simple "top five" list.

Best Salesforce Data Archiving Tools: Features, Pricing & Use Cases

Final Takeaway

Salesforce data doesn’t lose its value just because it gets old. The key is knowing what to keep active, what to archive, what to retain for compliance, and what can eventually be deleted.

A good archiving strategy connects storage, retention, access, security, and recovery into one clear data lifecycle. DataArchiva helps organizations manage that lifecycle across Salesforce and external storage, while keeping historical data searchable, accessible, and governed.

The best time to build an archiving strategy is before storage becomes a problem, not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Salesforce archiving the same as backup?

No. Archiving manages inactive data for long-term retention and access, while backup is focused on recovering data after deletion, corruption, or other data-loss events. Organizations may need both.

Does archiving delete Salesforce data?

No. Archiving moves inactive data out of the active Salesforce environment while retaining it for future access. Deletion is a separate step that should only happen when retention requirements have been met.

What Salesforce data should be archived?

Typically, inactive Cases, Opportunities, Activities, EmailMessages, Files, contracts, orders, and custom-object records that still have historical, business, or compliance value.

Can archived Salesforce data still be accessed?

Yes. A properly designed archive should let users search, view, report on, and restore historical data when needed.

Can Salesforce archiving be automated?

Yes. Archiving can be scheduled and policy-driven based on factors such as record age, status, activity, or retention requirements. DataArchiva supports configurable automated archiving policies.

Where can Salesforce data be archived?

Depending on the architecture, data can be archived to Salesforce Big Objects, AWS, Azure, GCP, Heroku, or on-premises storage. DataArchiva supports these options.

Does archiving replace buying more Salesforce storage?

Not necessarily. If users actively need the data in Salesforce, additional storage may make sense. For inactive historical data, archiving can reduce the amount of data that needs to remain in the active Salesforce environment.

What should I look for in a Salesforce archiving solution?

Focus on automation, scalability, relationship preservation, retention, security, search, reporting, restoration, integrations, and total cost.