50% of Americans Would Rather Lose Vacation Time Than Files

Although 51% of Americans have experienced a computer crash where they lost all of their digital files, more than one-third (39%) admit they have never backed up their computers, or haven’t done so in more than a year.

These are just a few of the surprising stats from a survey released by Wakefield Research and Carbonite, Inc.

The general lack of preparedness is surprising in light of the fact that 40% of Americans feel like they would never be able to recover, recreate or repurchase all of their documents and files if their personal computer crashed.

It’s even more surprising considering the insights that the study uncovered regarding the significant value many Americans assign to their digital content, including:

• "It’s More Valuable Than Vacation Time": 50% would rather lose all of their vacation time for an entire year than lose all of the files on their computer.
• "It’s Even More Precious Than My Wedding Ring": 38% of married Americans feel that it would be worse to lose everything on their computer than to lose their wedding ring.
• "I’d Pay Dearly to Get My Data Back": 62% said they would pay to get back their lost data if their computer crashed; 21% said they would pay $500 and 27% said they would pay as much as they needed to get their documents and files back.
• "I’d Sacrifice Something I Love to Save My Data": People would go to extremes to immediately recover all of their data if it were lost.

Moreover:

• 34% would give up beer and wine for a year;
• 31% would give up coffee for a year;
• 23% would give up their cell phone for a month; and
• 18% would give up their free time to mow their neighbor’s lawn for a year.

Americans Place Too Much Trust in HDDs
The study also revealed that Americans are surprisingly trusting of their computer hard drives, particularly taking into account that over half have lost all of their personal files in a computer crash at some point.

According to study, 82% of Americans keep electronic files only and the majority of these files are nowhere else but on their computer hard drive. The most popular files people store digitally are photos (55%), music (46%), resumes (42%), addresses (28%), phone numbers (27%), and financial documents (22%). Notably, the average American surveyed has more than $400 of digital music and movies on their computers and that, for one in four, the music and movies are worth more than the computer itself.

"It’s interesting to contrast the way people insure their treasured possessions, like their home and their car, with the ways in which they leave their often-irreplaceable digital assets unprotected," said David Friend, Carbonite CEO and Chairman. "People have priceless photographs, critical personal financial information, and hundreds of dollars of digital media stored on their computer. Most have experienced at least one major data loss disaster, yet are still not taking simple steps to protect the contents of their computer. We invented Carbonite automatic online backup specifically to make it easy for people to protect their irreplaceable digital assets."

Methodological Notes
The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research among 1,004 adult Americans, ages 18 and older, between October 13th and October 19th, 2011, using an email invitation and an online survey. Quotas have been set to ensure reliable and accurate representation of the U.S. adult population 18 and older.

Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. For the interviews conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.