Nearly half of Australian small businesses have lost files, photos, profits and reputation due to bad backup practices, according to a new survey from Seagate.
A new Seagate survey shows that of the 45pc of business that have lost work due to backup problems, 17pc have lost files, photos and work on more than one occasion. Half admitted these data losses had a financial impact on their business with the average revenue lost between 3 and 10pc.
20pc said this data loss had an impact on their professional reputation and nearly half admitted they’d lost client work as a result of not backing up.
The rationale given for not backing up was most commonly attributed to lack of time (38pc) and confusion around the technology itself (20pc).
Seagate, a major hard disk maker who would naturally love to sell you additional drives for backup purposes, says the survey insights “reveal the importance of best practice in data protection for small businesses as client data and files are critical to the survival of small companies.”
Shocking backup horror stories are unveiled in the survey, with a stunning 13pc of respondents admitting “that they backed up work to an internal computer drive, exposing them to the possibility of significant data loss”, while “55pc of respondents reported backing up to an external drive that they plug into the computer”, with none of the respondents having a comprehensive backup plan for all office devices.
There is, however, some good news, with “nearly 50pc of businesses surveyed are considering upgrading to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution to protect their business from future data loss.”
BanSeng Teh, Senior VP and MD of Seagate AP/Japan said: “It is fascinating to see that so many businesses are relying on the hope that their technology will not fail them when simple and cost effective solutions can be put in place to help support their growth and ultimate survival without the need for dedicated IT resources. We’re keen to educate small business on how to improve their IT practices and hopefully this research will provide a timely reminder for them to develop best practice data protection solutions.”
Unsurprisingly and cleverly, the research comes as Seagate announces the introduction of a new portfolio of Networked Attached Storage (NAS) solutions to the Australian market specifically designed for today’s small businesses.
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The new portfolio includes five NAS products in a range of capacities from 2TB to 24TB and performance perfectly suited for the home office to small businesses with up to 50 employees The Seagate NAS and NAS Pro lines set the standard for ease-of-use by introducing a new intuitive operating system, NAS OS 4, together with hardware specifically designed for small businesses without dedicated IT resources.
Seagate says the survey “was fielded between 26 July and 5 August 2014” and “commissioned Cint to survey 250 small businesses in Australia with all respondents IT decision makers in company sizes between 1 and 50 people”.
