8 out of 10 of the most costly disasters in the US have been hurricanes.B So, if youb re not in b hurricane territoryb , can you rest easy?
Well, the other 2 most costly disasters were the World Trade Center attack and the Northridge earthquake b ranked 3 and 4 right behind hurricanes Katrina and Andrew.B In situations like this, there is no time for last minute preparations.B If you werenb t prepared before disaster struck, it was too late.
The same goes for lots of other potential threats.B In the b Wizard of Ozb , Dorothy was wisked away by a tornado.B I doubt her computer would have survived as well as she did.B And, most flooding starts with a manageable amount of rain from a storm.B All it takes is a b stallb in the stormb s movement and water collects too fast for drainage systems to handle.
With improvements in technology, weB donb t think much about hardware failure these days.B But, consider these rather startling statistics that are generally accepted in the data recovery field and reported by the University of North Carolinab s Information Technology Service:
- A hard drive crashes every 15 seconds
- 2,000 laptops are stolen or lost every day
- 32% of data loss is caused by human error
- 31% of PC users have lost all of their PC files to events beyond their control
- 25% of lost data is due to the failure of a portable drive
- 44% of data loss is caused by mechanical failure
- 15% or more of laptops are stolen or suffer hard drive failures
- 1 in 5 computers suffer a fatal hard drive crash during their lifetime
- 40% of small and medium-sized businesses don’t back up their data at all
- 60% of all data is held on PC desktops and laptops
Professor David M. Smith, PhD, of Pepperdine Universityb s Graziadio School of Business and Management writes: b The cost of lost data from computers is substantial. Businesses must be proactive in protecting this important resource.b
Collocation and/or virtualization of your servers is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to protect your business from a critical loss of data.B We have many great options available.B Donb t delay – make this discussion a b top priorityb before itb s too late.