83% of Consumers Understand Need to Backup Regularly

Acronis is releasing research which unveils that consumers are generally aware of the need for backup and recovery, even if they are not carrying it out regularly enough.

When surveyed, 83% of consumers stated that they understand the need to backup, indicating that awareness of the technology is increasing and is catching up with other more established consumer technologies such as antivirus software.

However, despite the awareness of the technology much of the data on PCs and laptops is not being protected. Almost a third (29%) of consumers do not backup the files, photos and music on their machines at all, while a quarter (25%) state that they only backup when they remember. In fact, only 15% backup on a regular basis (once a week or more).

The research revealed that people are well-educated about backup and recovery, with only a small minority of consumers stating that they do not backup because they do not think that their data is at risk or because they are ignorant about the subject matter. Apathy is the main barrier with almost half of consumers (48%) stating that they know they should backup but they do not do it or do not do it correctly.

While consumer attitudes to backup and recovery may be complacent, the survey indicates that people do fear the prospect of losing all their data and the consequences of not backing up. For instance, 62% of consumers fear the prospect of their PC or laptop crashing, losing their machine or it being stolen, as opposed to just under a third of consumers who fear virus attack (31%).

"It is encouraging to see that more and more people are becoming aware about backup and recovery," David Blackman, General Manager Northern Europe at Acronis explains. "However, consumer backup practices are still sloppy and many of us are putting months’ worth of data at risk. While awareness of backup is creeping up behind antivirus we’re still not at the stage that security products are at. What is needed is backup software similar to antivirus solutions, which is easy to use and backs up data without the consumer even having to think about it."

Why backup and recovery is just as important as antivirus:

1. Backup and recovery tools can actually protect you if your antivirus fails. If your computer gets infected, simply roll back to the last good backup and reinstall.
2. Antivirus may protect your machine from viruses, but what happens if the hard drive fails (which is highly likely as technology does not last forever). With backup and recovery software you can reinstall your system, applications and files to a new computer or PC.
3. How about if your laptop gets lost or stolen? Where are your files? With online backup and recovery you can simply download your files to a new PC from a secure location.
4. What happens if you did not update your security software and your PC cannot access the file you downloaded? Would you lose all your previous data?
5. What would happen if your operating system did not start when you switch on your computer? Do you say goodbye to your data?

Acronis surveyed 440 consumers both face-to-face and online in August 2010. Respondents were questioned in France, Germany, UK, APAC, Sweden and Spain. 46% were female and 54% were male.

To look at the video when questioning people for this survey