I was discussing data protection/business continuity with an IT consultant the other day. He has a client that is balking at the price for reliable off site data backup. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. Let’s face it, who wants to buy any more insurance than needed. Also, many businesses don’t believe a disaster will happen – what are the odds of our building burning down or hit by a hurricane or tornado? If that were the only reason to protect your data, very few businesses would bother.
Here are some interesting stats to consider before you decide not to protect your data (source: Pepperdine University – Cost of Lost Data):
- Hardware failure, accounting for 40 % of data loss incidents. These include losses due to hard drive failure and power surges.
- Human error accounts for 30 % of data loss episodes, which include the accidental deletion of data as well as accidental damage done to the hardware, such as damage caused by dropping a laptop.
- Software corruption, which might include damage caused by a software diagnostic program, accounts for 13 % of data loss incidents.
- Computer viruses–including boot sector and file infecting viruses–account for 6 % of data loss episodes.
- Theft of hardware, especially prevalent with laptops, accounts for 9 % of data loss incidents.
- Finally, hardware destruction, which includes damage caused by floods, lightning and fire, accounts for 3 % of all data loss episodes.
Survival rate for businesses that experience complete data loss vary so I won’t bother listing them – we listed them on our web site in case you’re interested.
If you are considering whether or not you need to protect your company’s data, just ask yourself one question – What would happen to my company if we lost all our data?
Unlike insurance premiums, your data protection insurance premiums do not go up when you make a claim.