Consumers have become more reliant on personal data for everything from health records, financial documents, home video and photos, social media videos and more, and many are realising the importance of backing up data.

With that in mind, Western Digital have announced the results of a global research study by Researchscape, where 79% of respondents cite that they backup their data automatically or manually. The top reasons for backing up personal data are fear of losing important files (77%), to free up space on their device (58%) and to protect against cyber threats (38%). 16% do it because they were told to.

“It’s fantastic to see more people recognising the importance of protecting their data,” said Nitin Kachhwaha, director of product management at Western Digital.

“World Backup Day is an important yearly reminder to everyone to backup their data and to educate the people who still aren’t aware of the impact of failing to backup.

“It’s also an opportunity to reinforce just how critical it is to safeguard what matters most—because all it takes is one small accident for data to be lost forever. In fact, almost half (42%) of respondents have already experienced data loss due to device failure, accidental deletion or cyberattacks.”

For those respondents who do not backup their personal data, 35% don’t know how to back it up, 26% still think they don’t need to backup their data, 23% don’t have enough storage space, and 21% think it takes too much time. 56% of respondents agree that they would backup data more frequently if it was automatic and effortless.

A dependable backup practice is to follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy, where consumers should have three copies of data, stored on two different types of media with one copy stored offsite, like in the cloud.

Recommended reading

• Mozilla Foundation Axes Staff, Halting Advocacy Efforts
• New Nonprofit PRISM Launched To Investigate AI Sentience
• Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland Becomes Social Enterprise

With free cloud storage limits quickly maxing out, many consumers are turning to a hybrid approach to protect their data. In the survey, 62% of respondents reported that they rely on free cloud storage, 35% have run out of space in the past six months, and 44% have had to upgrade to paid plans. Additionally, 65% find cloud storage increasingly expensive.

This is driving more people to adopt a combination of both cloud and local external storage to ensure data protection and cost efficiency. External HDD storage provides a cost-effective solution to complement the cloud, and many consumers are already embracing this approach — 37% use an external HDD, while 81% rely on cloud storage, and only 8% rely on network-attached storage (NAS).

By diversifying storage methods, users can maintain reliable backups while managing growing cloud costs.