Indians prefer hard drives over cloud for backup, 52% lost data once in 5 years: report

More PC users in India prefer to use physical drives over cloud storage for backup, shows a new study called “Understanding Data Storage Habits of PC Users in India” which was released Friday to mark the World Backup Day (March 31). Around 48% have used external hard disk drives (HDD) and 39% have used external solid-state drives (SSD) to back up data and only 36% have used cloud storage for backup. 

The report also found 52% of PC users Indians have lost their data at least once in the last 5 years, while 45% have suffered some form of data loss in the last year. Physical damage and system crashes accounted for 56% and 52%, respectively, of all data losses, followed by device theft, loss of devices, viruses, and forgotten passwords. 

Sponsored by US-based data storage company Western Digital (WD), the study was carried out by Feedback Advisory, a Bengaluru-based market research and consultancy firm, which interviewed 1,102 PC users from 15 Indian cities for it. 

The study further shows that only 34% of Indian users take a full backup of their data, 48% take partial backups and 18% don’t take backups at all. For 41% of the users, high cost and security were the top reasons for not backing up data. 

“While there is high inertia among consumers to back up their data, we are seeing a slow yet steady mindset change. Consumers are becoming more aware of the importance of their data and looking for effortless backup solutions,” said Jaganathan Chelliah, Senior Director, Marketing, India, Middle East, and Africa for WD. 

Out of those who are taking backup, 31% said they are doing it once every month while 24% are doing it every week and 28% are doing an automatic backup. 

Further, the study also found that 69% of users are willing to pay for hardware encryption, 80% for password protection, and 75% for data recovery software.