Instant File Initialization on Backup drive I know IFI (Instant File Initialization) is good to have enabled on SQL Servers. How about backup archive locations? We backup our DBs to a local SSD drive (so it backs up quickly), then throughout the day we slowly move the backups over to an archive location and perform restores and DBCCs on a non-prod server. I was curious if that archive location we copy the backups to should have IFI enabled?
If the archive location is part of same server and if you are performing restores to same server,then you will have IFI enabled.You can always enable Instant file initialization on server you are performing restores too ,I dont see an issue enabling it on prod server and not enabling it on test server.you can further check using below trace flags if IFI is enabled or not.

DBCC TRACEON(3004,-1);
DBCC TRACEON(3605,-1);