21% Of Consumers Admit To Never Backing Up Data

One in five consumers has never backed up a digital device despite admitting that the data on a device is often much more valuable than the piece of kit that it is stored on.

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Data from Acronis showed that 21 per cent have never backed up a digital device even though the UK will see around one trillion digital photos taken over the course of 2014.

“With the rise of the ‘selfie’ and the increased use of music and videos, many consumers would be completely lost if something happened to their digital device. But unfortunately most don’t realize the dangers until its too late.  Consumers need to be educated on the importance of backing up and protecting their data and how easy it is to implement a solution,” said Nat Maple, Head of Consumer, Acronis.

Acronis’ 2014 Consumer Survey found that 65 per cent of those surveyed consider the data to be more important than the device itself and it’s alarming that of those surveyed 22 per cent already admitted to having had a device that has been stolen, lost or damaged in some way.

Just 66 per cent stated they had stored some of their content digitally and of this number 24 per cent had done so in the week preceding the survey being carried out.

Most of those that back up data do so using USB sticks or a hard drive, 42.5 per cent stating this as the preferred method. This compared to just 18 per cent using a cloud-based storage service to handle back-ups.

Related: The case in favour of online backups

“By paying a minimal cost now, users can avoid losing their valuable, irreplaceable data on their devices, let alone the device itself. Disasters happen but our suggestion is, don’t wait until it’s too late, back up now,” Maple added.

Image Credit: Flickr (Rhiannon)