Most DSS data is ultimately stored electronically.  It is now possible to rent massive storage capacity off-site on secure commercial servers.  These avoid the risk of data loss through natural or man-made catastrophes.

Even paper forms can be converted to electronic form and stored in this way.  This is an example of electronic document archiving as used at Matlab DSS in Bangladesh. This system provides searching of event forms, which have been scanned and saved into a computer using the Archive Processing System (APS). Document storage and searching uses several selection criteria: 

See also Archives in Section 4.