Not all data is equally important, or useful on a day-to-day basis. There are two main types: hot data and cold data. Hot data is information that is requested and used on a regular basis. Customer-related information and documents used daily by employees are hot data. In contrast, cold data is information that does not need to be accessed often. They are sometimes simply kept for legal purposes, with no other use for the company. For example, outdated financial data or old contracts are cold data.