Consumers are unaware of personal data loss remedies

GaryPageau

Data loss can have serious implications for any person, especially for precious memories in the form of family photos or videos. According to the recent Data Recovery Survey 2020 conducted by CleverFiles, the creators of file recovery software Disk Drill, 63% of respondents have recently lost their personal digital data, and 42% of them weren’t able to recover their data.

Moreover, 18% of the respondents mentioned they suffered some financial losses due to data loss, where 14% of them lost more than $1,000, over half of them (53%) lost between $100 and $500, and almost one-third (30%) under $100. Despite this, a surprising number of people (24%) didn’t start backing up their data after the initial data loss.

Among the most common data loss reasons are:

  • 20% of hardware fail
  • 20% system malfunction
  • 19% accidentally deleted the files themselves
  • 13% loss of a device
  • 8% formatted the drive
  • 7% mechanical damage
  • 6% computer virus or malware
  • other 8% are associated with other reasons, one of them being a lightning strike of a computer

Among the most common types of files that were lost are:

  • Photos (89%)
  • Videos (47%)
  • Personal documents (44%)
  • Work documents (32%)
  • Audio files (27%)

While almost a quarter of people (24%) didn’t know they could recover their files, the majority did turn to different ways of trying to get their files back. Thus, almost half of them (49%) tried using the data recovery software, another 30% turned to specialized data recovery service, while the remaining 21% were attempting to restore their files with the help of backups, friends, and family members.

For those who went for assistance to specialized data recovery service, the recovery cost under $100 for 66% of respondents, under $500 for 26%, and for 6% it was over $500.

The most comment types of storage people lose the data from are the following:

  • 45% Mobile phone
  • 45% Hard drive
  • 32% Computer internal storage
  • 22% USB flash drive
  • 16% SD card from a camera

The survey also showed that people can also be careless about their personal data protection. Thus, 8% don’t have password protection on their devices, and only 70% perform regular backups. Also, a surprising number of people (24%) didn’t start backing up their data after the initial data loss.