According to recent study, around 1,40,000 hard drives fail each week in the US. Of course, hardware failure is just one piece of the puzzle.
When you factor in human error, hackers and viruses, and natural disasters, it becomes evident how common data loss actually is. And yet, ironically enough, backing up data regularly is still not common practice.
As with most things in life, people don’t place much value on data until it’s gone. But with how accessible backups are these days, we strongly believe this shouldn’t be the case anymore.
As such, in this article, we’ve detailed the most important reasons to backup your data, the benefits that come with it, best practices, and other similar topics.
Why is Backing Up Data Important?
For the average user, protection against data loss is undoubtedly the main selling point of backups. But if you consider the importance of backups for businesses, there are quite a few more benefits.
Hard drives, or whichever other medium you’re currently using to store your data, have a lifespan like anything else. Depending on the device and its usage conditions, this will typically vary from5 – 15years.
Hardware failure is the primary threat to your data, but it’s not the only one. According to Surfshark, over212 millionusers were affected by data breaches in 2021. And that’s in the US alone. Furthermore, stats from Kensington show that Americans lose70 millionphones annually.
Data loss isn’t limited to malicious acts either. Tales of users accidentally formatting their entire drives is surprisingly common, as are tales of businesses losing critical data due to acts of nature, then failing to bounce back because they never backed up anything.
But that’s enough about the causes. What’s really of significance is what happens after the data is lost. Be it decades-old personal photos or important official documents; most people only regret not having backupsafterthey’ve already lost their valuable data.
As Warren Buffet once said, “It’s good to learn from your mistakes, but it’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.” In the case of backups, this statement rings even truer with howsimpleandaccessiblethey are these days and the sheer variety of solutions available.
Benefits for Businesses
According to Unitrends,94%of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss either never reopen or close within 2 years. We’ve already talked about data loss, so the importance of backups, especially for businesses, should be clear by now. But additionally, there are also several benefits worth mentioning.
In the event of data loss, backups will minimize the time it takes for your business to bounce back to usual conditions. Without backups, you’d have to spend a ton of time, money, and effort for data recovery – all withno guaranteesof success.
Minimal downtimeand the fact that you don’t need to worry about data recovery primarily means one thing – huge expense cuts.
