A new survey from Barracuda shows compliance is the most important reason to archive mail, but not the only driver.Today Barracuda Networks released the results of a survey of 200 IT professionals about e-mail archiving. When asked the most important reason for archiving messages, 29% chose "Compliance with industry regulations."

That result is similar to a recent InformationWeek survey on e-mail archiving. Of 597 respondents using, deploying, or planning to deploy an archive, 59% chose "To improve our ability to find e-mail for litigation or compliance/audit issues" as the top reason for deploying an archive.

The complete InformationWeek survey is available in a detailed analyst report that also includes profiles of 35 e-mail archiving products. You can download it for free here.

Of course, compliance isn't the only reason companies are turning to e-mail archives. According to the Barracuda survey, the second-highest response, at 21%, was to enable users to access archived e-mail. Two responses tied for third at 15% each: retention is a best practice, and an archive lets users get older mail when quotas are in effect.