Wow, Steve, you definitely pushed my buttons with this one. It is my humble opinion ( note I don't use the vernacular there ) that the evolution of mass storage has lead to a drastic decline in the skillset to properly analyze, summarize, and archive data. It's easier to throw money at storage than to logically, properly and safely handle data volume.
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I do agree with some offline storage, but likely some of that still should go. The price paid or shipping location for a decade ago (or any PII data)? Not sure there's any legal reason to keep this, and I'd argue that a business reason is probably outweighed by risk for liability.
OK, just for instance, knowing that a decade ago a customer bought $1000 worth of a product probably was a much larger volume of the product than $1000 of the same product now, and that get's into the whole area of cost of storage, sales, transportation, and profitability, all adjusted for inflation. You can tell I'm still a detail-oriented obsessive-compulsive, right?
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )