Organisations must shift from static, passive data archives to intelligent, accessible repositories that unlock archival data value, according to a new report released by the Active Archive Alliance.

The report – "Preparing for Tomorrow's Expanding Storage Challenge with Active Archive" – reveals how active archives are transforming data management strategies across enterprise sectors managing compliance, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation initiatives.

The shift comes as data centre electricity demand accelerates sharply, driven by artificial intelligence workloads. In the United States, power consumption by data centres is projected to account for almost half of electricity demand growth between 2025 and 2030, the report states.

Electricity demand from AI–optimised data centres is projected to more than quadruple by 2030, reaching 945 terawatt–hours (TWh) – slightly more than Japan's entire electricity consumption today.

For Information Managers and Digital Transformation Managers, the implications are profound. Active archives enable reliable, online, and cost–effective access to data throughout its lifecycle whilst managing energy consumption and compliance obligations. Approximately 80 percent of an organisation's digital data falls into the low–activity or inactive category, making active archives essential for managing this fastest–growing data class.

The Active Archive Alliance describes an active archive as a strategic approach to intelligently manage data throughout its lifecycle, allowing organisations to balance immediate access to archival data with storage efficiency.

Unlike traditional cold archives – often static and difficult to access – active archives integrate two or more storage technologies behind Intelligent Data Management Software (IDMS) to provide seamless management of archive data in a single virtualised storage pool.

"Demand for enterprise storage capacity is accelerating rapidly, driven by massive AI–fuelled data growth," said Rich Gadomski, co–chairperson of the Active Archive Alliance and director of channel sales at FUJIFILM North America Corp.

"Active archives enable smart storage optimisation that offers the right balance of accessibility, performance and energy efficiency by moving data between storage tiers based on access frequency and business value."

Energy efficiency represents a critical advantage for enterprise technology leaders. By migrating low–activity or inactive data from hard disk drives (HDDs) to magnetic tape through an active archive strategy, organisations can reduce carbon emissions by up to 97 percent compared to all–HDD solutions.

A study comparing three scenarios – all–HDD, all–tape, and an active archive strategy moving 60 percent of low–activity HDD data to tape – demonstrated a 58 percent reduction in carbon emissions over a 10–year period.

The report highlights critical challenges confronting organisations implementing long–term archival strategies. Limited metadata for unstructured data complicates efficient data retrieval and AI training processes. Organisations face significant risks of format obsolescence – a document saved in 2025 may not be readable in 2075 due to software ecosystem changes, vendor discontinuation, or lack of backward compatibility.

Technology Managers and CTOs must account for hardware refresh cycles. Hard disk drives typically last 4–6 years before replacement or failure. Data retained for 100 years would require at least 10 migrations to newer media, each introducing risks of data loss, corruption, and increased operational costs. A recent Experian study revealed that 64 percent of data migration projects analysed exceeded budgets, and only 46 percent delivered on time.

Data migration challenges underscore the need for systematic planning. The report identifies four key challenges and risks: making archival data accessible at ingest through metadata classification and indexing; managing long–term archival storage infrastructure; ensuring only potentially needed archive data is stored; and ensuring security and availability of archival data.

In 2025, the LTO Consortium launched LTO–10, the tenth generation of the industry's most widely adopted tape storage format. The LTO technology roadmap extends through 14 generations, with LTO–14 delivering up to 1,440 TB (1.44 petabyte) compressed per cartridge.

A record 176.5 exabytes of total tape capacity (compressed) shipped in 2024, representing 15.4 percent growth over 2023. This growth reflects evolving infrastructure requirements driven by AI, machine learning, and unstructured data growth – alongside shifts toward lower–cost hybrid cloud environments.

For hybrid cloud strategies, active archives bridge on–premises and cloud environments, enabling seamless long–term storage and access to archival data. Frequently accessed data can remain on–premises or in high–performance cloud tiers, whilst less frequently accessed data automatically moves to low–cost cloud storage. A unified global namespace provides a single logical view of data across both on–premises and cloud locations.

The report introduces a transformative secondary storage model comprising three distinct tiers. The Active Archive tier (Write–Once, Read–Many) provides online access to dynamic archival data. The Traditional Archive tier (Write–Once, Read–Seldom if Ever) supports lower–activity, big data and cold archives. The emerging Deep Archive tier (Write–Once, Read–Never) targets permanent, rarely accessed, dark data – often serving as a golden, immutable master copy.

"Tiering is necessary to group large datasets and assign them levels of importance and priority," said Eric Polet, co–chairperson of the Active Archive Alliance and director of product marketing at Arcitecta. "An active archive serves this purpose well, as it allows data to be relegated to a lower tier whilst still being available rapidly should it be needed by the AI engine."

"As global data volumes approach 180 zettabytes, traditional storage architectures are becoming economically and environmentally unsustainable," said Rick Bump, Chief Executive Officer and Co–Founder of SAVARTUS.

"Active archive solutions deliver significant cost reductions and operational efficiency improvements whilst providing the immutable, energy–efficient foundation necessary for AI development at scale. The question is not whether to adopt active archive technology, but how quickly organisations can transform data storage from a growing liability into a competitive differentiator rooted in environmental responsibility."

The full report is available here.