While recently working on a project involving the “soft” costs associated with backing up a company’s data, an IV partner provided me with an excellent collection of statistics pertaining to this subject. I’ve listed it below for your reference and welcome any questions you may have. Of course these numbers fluctuate by a couple of percentage points depending on who you ask, but the point is still made crystal clear… back up your data (preferably not on a PC in your CEO’s basement)!

« 34% of companies fail to test their tape backups, and of those that do, 77% have found tape back-up failures.

« 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster.

« As much as 60% of corporate data resides unprotected on PC desktops and laptops.

« Key causes of data loss:
78% Hardware or System Malfunction
11% Human Error
7% Software Corruption or Program Malfunction
2% Computer Viruses
1% Natural Disasters
1% Other

« 25 percent of users frequently back up digital files, while 85 percent of computer users say they are very concerned about losing important digital data.

« More than 22 percent said backing up information is on their to-do list, but they seldom do it.

« 30 percent of companies report that they still do not have a disaster recovery program in place and two in three companies feel their data backup and disaster recovery plans have significant vulnerabilities.

« 1 in 20-25 notebooks are stolen, broken or destroyed each year.

« Today’s hard drives store 500 times the data stored on the drives of a decade ago. Increasing storage capacities amplify the impact of data loss, making mechanical precision more critical.

« The average failure rate of disk and tape drives is 100% - All drives eventually fail.

« 30% chance that you will have a corrupted file within a one-year time frame.

« More than 50 percent of customers surveyed said their current backup solution does not meet their needs.