BLOG - online backup

PC Advisor carried out a poll to find out the way people are backing up.

A massive 69% of the 1581, who took part, use external hard drives, with 7% periodically burning data to CDs/DVDs. 6% use "another method", and 5% use online backup. 13% admitted that they don't backup at all.

5% - or 1 out of 20 consumers - seems quite small, but I'd like to bet that this is a substantial increase over the last couple of years, and a fraction of what is to come, as the cost of cloud storage has plummetted in recent times.

Now, wouldn't you think most people have heard of that old cliché "once bitten, twice shy"? And yet, a survey of 1750 IT bosses in companies and public sector organisations, across nine European countries, shows that 54% of them had lost data or suffered system downtime in the past 12 months, but - and this is the staggering part - 74% of them believed that they would not fully recover their data or systems after an IT failure.

EMC, who carried out the research, said "firms needed to put more focus on backup and recovery systems". You bet! They also reported that the most common forms of data loss and downtime was hardware failure, followed by power outage and software malfunction.

So, if I'm sitting here looking smug, it wasn't the "festive fare" over the last few days, it's the knowledge that we have external drive backups AND online backups to protect our data - that's business information and all the family photos, etc.

Kroll Ontrack have published their annual Top 10 "Data Disasters", which range from human error to natural disaster, revealing "data loss is often inevitable, but not necessarily permanent. (Kroll are one of the top international data recovery firms, with 30 offices around the world. )

Coming in at number 1 is the "triple whammy" of a fire that sent a home on a Caribbean island up in smoke, followed by the computers being doused with water by the firemen, before the storage media corroding during the period till the building was safe to enter again. Amazingly, Kroll Ontract were able to recover the data! Full details are in Kroll's press section.

If you have visited this site before, you will know that we recommend doing a backup online, but if you need data recovery, Kroll is a renowned specialist.

The BBC has carried a report of what is claimed to be a new world record for data transfers over long distances. Using the latest optical equipment in part of the the Canadian Advanced Research & Innovation Network ("CANARIE"), data was transmitted about 212 km at two way data rates of 186 Gbps.

This breaks their previous record of 119 Gbps set in 2009 and is fast enough to transfer two million gigabytes of data in one day. While it's going to be some time before we have those kinds of speeds at our office or home, it does show what the future has in store - and makes off site backups or "cloud storage" ever more viable.

The BBC article also carries a link to a report from May 2011, describing how researchers set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser: 26 terabits per second, which they helpfully translate as the contents of nearly 1000 high definition DVDs per second!

Having asked how much your data is worth yesterday, here are some answers from a US study reported on the Disaster Recovery Journal website.

They report that the average loss for a small business is $3000 per day, rising to $23,000 for a medium sized business. The loss comprises labour costs, lost revenue & loss in services and goodwill.

50% of small to medium sized companies only implemented a Backup & Disaster Recovery ("BDR") plan after experiencing a power outage or data loss (only 28% then actually tested their recovery plan), and the other 50% don't have a plan, with 40% of them saying it's not a priority. Less than half backed up their data weekly or more frequently, and just 23% back up data daily.

In the past, the cost of cloud storage was a reason why many did not do an offsite backup, but the cost is now so low, there is no excuse.

What is your data worth to you? To put the cost of using a paid-for online backup service, we recommend doing this brief exercise: it's as valid for storage of personal files like music tracks, photos and documents, as it is for a business.

First, think of several categories to classify your data, selecting perhaps 4 to 6 different headings. For home use, this could be music, photos, personal documents, and work. For office use, this might include your client database; sales quotes & presentations; contracts; supplier information & purchase orders; accounts; and email. Now, try to put a financial value against each of those headings, as to what it would cost you in time, effort, disruption, data recovery costs, if you were to lose that information. Can you put a value on peace of mind?

We believe that the cost of online backup will be a tiny proportion of your estimated costs. That surely is a great definition of "value for money"!

Being both a regular reader of the ZD net pages and a keen amateur photographer, I was interested to see their item chosing the 10 best digital cameras for Christmas gifts.

Apart from some thoughts that there are some lucky people out there, if they have friends or family who are going to buy them presents at those sorts of prices, I was interested to see how the megapixel count stacked up in this top 10 selection. The lowest scored 10.0 and 10.1, while 6 were on 12.1; 2nd place went to 12.3 and the highest was at 16.1 megapixels. While I have already discovered that the quality of the lens has a major effect on quality of image, this ever increasing number of megapixels means more storage space per photo taken - not just on the camera's memory card, but also in making sure that your photos are backed up online to protect them.

No wonder I recommend an "unlimited" online backup of family memories.

Publisher ZDNet reported today that BAE Systems has cancelled their plans to use Microsoft's 365 cloud storage solution, after "data sovereignty could not be guaranteed", highlighting America's Patriot Act as a reason.

There are changes planned to the European Data Protection Directive, which are anticipated to close some of the loopholes which could currently be exploited by the U.S. particularly under a Patriot Act request. This really is essential if the owners of data here in Europe are going to feel comfortable about storing their data in the Cloud.

Industry research specialists IDC have reported two interesting growth figures.

The first is that the revenues of the factories that produce external disk storage systems grew by 10.8%, totaling just under $5.8 billion year-over-year, in the 3rd Quarter of 2011. The capacity shipped reached a staggering 5,429 petabytes - up 30.7% year over year.

The second, which also relates to data storage and backup, is that storage software revenues reached nearly $3.5 billion in the 3rd Quarter of 2011, a 9.7% increase over the same quarter in 2010. EMC, Symantec and IBM were deemed to have come in 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

We can probably interpret that, not only as a growth in data requiring more storage, but - hopefully! - as more awareness of the need to backup. Do we need both external disk backup AND online backup? I'd say yes: I'm a belt and braces type. The cost is so low, it's worth being really well protected.

A survey carried out by Data Recovery experts Deepspar, who surveyed 50 data recovery companies in 14 countries, shows that hard drive failure is the most common cause of data loss. This is closely followed by the storage medium getting corrupted or degraded, rendering the data inaccessible. These 2 causes represent 38% and 30% of data loss cases respectively.

13% of data loss is caused by system or other software issues, which include problems caused by viruses. User error contributes almost the same loss of data, at 12%. The remaining 7% is down to theft - and (see previous blog post) this figure is increasing due to laptop theft.

For the 1st two causes of data loss mentioned above, expert assistance is recommended to attempt data recovery. Given that this means off-site work and therefore a delay, online backups which can be restored to another PC or laptop really come into their own.

Research by a German website shows that 89% of surveyed firms in France, Germany, the UK and USA have had to write off a laptop due to theft. France had the worst statistic at 92%, followed by the USA at 91%, with Germany and UK both coming in on 89%.

Additionally, 72% of these companies had written off a laptop due to loss by an employee. Here the UK had the worst figure at 79%, followed by France at 77%, the USA on 73%, and Germany lucky to trail at 71%.

Anybody still uncertain about the need for laptop encryption, laptop tracking software, and the essential requirement for online backups?

"Data is doubling every 18 months, increasing operational and capital expenses while creating data protection challenges." This amazing statistic was announced as the result of research carried out by HP, one of the foremost names in high volume data storage, at their "HP Discover" event in Vienna a few days ago.

That got me thinking. One landmark that documents the growth in data was that the first file server my company purchased around 30 years ago had a massive 60 Mb hard disk! This stored not only multi user software such as WordPerfect and Borland Paradox database but also provided common storage for shared data files for the 8 of us working there. When we subsequently upgraded our PCs to models with 2Mb hard drives, that seemed enormous at the time. That's not enough today to store 1 photo off my digital camera.

One other thought: how skilful are the marketing men of the cloud storage companies that lure you in with a free 2Gb or even 5Gb account. It's a great way to get started but how soon are you going to exceed that level? Recommendation? For people who are new to online backup, try the free route to build confidence. For the more experienced (or the less timid?) you might as well go for either a much higher, paid, level of storage, or take an unlimited capacity offer.

Here's some news that sounds like the tale of the butterfly that beats its wings and there's a storm on the other side of the world. Taking the place of the butterfly are the floods which hit Thailand over recent weeks and which fortunately now are receding. And what is the storm? It's computer hard disk drives, because factories in Thailand are only just getting back to being dry. As IT Europa reports, the industrial estate where Western Digital's factory is, has had 8 million cubic metres of water drained from it.

There are therefore forecasts of shortages well into 2012. While SAS and SATA drives have not increased hugely in price, SCSI drives have seen substantial price hikes. The proverbial silver lining in this massive Thai rain cloud is probably the property of vendors of online backup / cloud storage, as this has the potential of making their services more attractive to home users and companies alike.