Why should I backup my data??

Does your business backup to an external drive?  or use tapes and other hardware on your server?  Do you store important data on workstations?

Do you backup just your server or both server and workstations?

In an article from Entrepreneur (October 2010) titled “How secure are you,” from a survey of over 2100 small businesses, states:

  • 74 percent of small and medium businesses were affected by cyber-attacks in the past 12 months (Oct 2009-2010).  Average annual cost of these attacks was $188,242
  • 62 percent of small businesses lost at least one mobile device in the past 12 months (Oct 2009-2010)
  • 100 percent of these businesses said at least some of their lost devices had no password protection
  • Less than a third of these businesses had the capacity to remotely wipe devices in the event of a loss
  • 42 percent of small and medium businesses have lost confidential or private data in the past 12 months (Oct 2009-2010)
  • 40 percent experienced direct financial costs as a result
  • 47 percent of those surveyed said they still do not ever backup their data

(Source:  Entrepreneur Magazine, October 2010 Issue, Page 47)

 

Astonishing results of the survey!  Almost 50% do not backup?  It is no doubt the small or medium business will lose money when data is lost.

Key causes for unplanned downtime:

  • 25% is related to hardware failure due to old, outdated, and unmanaged hardware
  • 25% software due to security risks
  • 20% network related due to outdated equipment and security risks
  • 15% human error
  • 14% environmental

Losing your data can put you out of business!

  • 25% or 1 in 4 of all PC users suffer from a data loss each year (Gartner Group)
  • 7 of 10 small business that experience a major data loss go out of business within a year (DTI/PriceWaterHouse Poll)
  • 15% of all laptops are stolen or suffer hard drive failure and had no backup (Gartner Group)
  • $61,881 – average loss due to laptop theft and unrecoverable data
  • $12 Billion annual cost of data loss for small/medium business in the USA (Gartner Group)
  • 43% of people lose irreplaceable files every year
  • Only 3 out of 100 stolen laptops are ever recovered
  • 13% of hard drives crash in their first year making data unrecoverable