87% of Users Backup Their HDDs 2 to 3 Months or Less Frequently

Home PCs and laptops storing the ever-changing data, photos, video, music and photos of consumers’ digital lives are backed up by most users less than once a month, according to a new survey of the backup habits of home users conducted by Acronis, Inc.

The online survey of 5,964 home users in North America found that 87 percent of users back up their hard drives just every two to three months or less frequently, far less often than any industry organization or publication recommends. This number is in sharp contrast with another survey finding – 80 percent of users have lost information and had to restore it.

“I learned my lesson the hard way: I had no backups,” reported Ryan McIntosh, a college student in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada. “I installed a program improperly and lost every Windows user account and all the data. Eventually, I had to reformat my drive. I lost two weeks worth of irreplaceable data for school.”

With consumers storing increasing amounts of critical data, those computers must be backed up more often to prevent the kind of catastrophic loss caused by hard disk failure, viruses and malware, unstable software downloads, user errors or physical disaster. According to Robert Thaler, Senior Director, Marketing, Acronis, users must evaluate their unique situations and create backup schedules that match the importance of the data. Many users back up their computers every week or two, with more frequent backups necessary if information changes frequently and is irreplaceable.

“Today, we rely on our laptops and desktop computers to store so much information – financial data, family records, irreplaceable photos and videos – that we need to treat backup and restore as seriously as we do virus and malware protection and be certain backups are scheduled and run,” said Thaler.

Restoring OS, Applications Frequent and Time Consuming
The Acronis survey also found that fully 81 percent of users had to reinstall their computer operating system and software applications. According to the survey, that data loss comes with a significant loss of time, with 48 percent reporting that the reinstallation process took more than four hours.

“I was fortunate enough to recover all my data, but I went without a computer for three days, spent two more days rebuilding it, and it will likely be weeks before I have everything organized again,” reported Gary Clement, of Alexandria, Va., after suffering through a serious malware infection.

“Unfortunately, consumer data loss is more a matter of when, not if – it is inevitable,” said Thaler. “Users should be sure they have full protection in place for their PCs, which means more than just copying files. That’s not disaster recovery. Instead users should back up their operating systems, applications, settings and configurations in addition to photos, spreadsheets and the like.”

Acronis True Image Home 2009, the backup and recovery software, automatically creates an exact copy of the hard disk and allows a user to instantly restore the entire machine. When disaster does strikes, Acronis True Image Home can restore a computer from a major failure in minutes.