Information retrieval (IR) and data retrieval are both concerned with retrieving information from a storage system, but they have different focuses and methods. IR generally deals with unstructured or semi-structured data, such as text, images, or videos, where the goal is to retrieve documents or media that are relevant to a query, often based on relevance ranking.
Data retrieval, on the other hand, typically involves retrieving structured data from databases or data warehouses, often through queries written in languages like SQL. The focus here is on retrieving exact matches or aggregating data based on specific criteria, such as numerical values, dates, or other well-defined attributes.
While both are retrieval tasks, IR is more about finding relevant or related information in unstructured data, while data retrieval is about querying structured data sources for precise answers.