The golden rule of data storage: BACKUP!

Seagate published the results of a worldwide consumer survey of adult computer users conducted this summer by Harris Interactive®. According to the results of the poll a little over a third of the adults in the US do not take the risk of losing their digital content seriously.

While US and Great Britain consumers are the most negligent at 35 percent neglecting to make backup copies of digital content stored on their computer to external devices or media, Australia trails close behind with 30 percent of the population not backing up. Of the six international markets surveyed, China leads the world in data backup with 83 percent doing so, followed by France at 81 percent and Germany rounding out the top three with 73 percent taking the proper steps to ensure they’ll have access to their data even in the event of a disk failure or system interruption.

These results are rather worrying in my opinion. Too bad until now the most reliable media able to store information for many years is the stone (take a look to the pyramids: after thousands of years these are still there…)

Even the most sophisticated piece of hardware is always subject to damage, so I suggest to follow as much as possible the golden rule of data storage: MAKE A BACKUP!

Some more details about the survey can be found at Seagate.