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New research from Kroll Ontrack has found that a third (32%) of organisations have lost data while migrating between devices or upgrading operating systems. The global survey of nearly 600 IT administrators also found that while over half (57%) of respondents had a backup solution in place, three quarters (75%) were not able to restore all of their lost data, with more than one-in-five (23%) unable to recover any data at all.

The results of this year's survey are consistent with research undertaken in the previous three years, where over half of consumers/businesses reported data loss even when backups are made. Specific to data loss experienced while migrating or upgrading operating systems, respondents in 2016 cite that the backup was not current (17%) or it was not operating correctly at the time of data loss (15%), the device was not included in the backup (14%), or the backup media itself was corrupted (11%).

OS OR HW: WHAT'S RISKIEST?
The problem of data loss occurs as regularly on standalone devices as on servers, highlighting the fact that this is a challenge for individual users as well as businesses. In fact half (50%) of respondents said they had lost data when migrating to new software or platforms from a desktop or laptop. The riskiest upgrades in these cases were upgrading operating systems (39%), reimaging desktop hardware (22%), physically migrating hardware (20%), or upgrading the hardware (17%).

Data loss appears to be less of a problem for mobile users, but still affected more than a third (34%) of respondents. Despite the automated update processes available when upgrading mobiles, 53% of respondents said that they lost data when migrating users to a new mobile device.

HOW DO BRITS COMPARE?
In the UK specifically, 26% of IT administrators said that they had experienced data loss when migrating to new software or platforms from a server, but this rose to 48% when migrating from a desktop or laptop and 50% when migrating from mobile devices. Of those who had lost data, 26% said they had backup in place but it wasn't operating properly at the time, while 11% said the device in question wasn't included in the backup.

Interestingly, in looking ahead to what respondents believe will be the major causes of corporate data loss in the next 12 months, global respondents rank migration and upgrading systems low on the scale of concern, even though our research reveals one-third of respondents had lost data during such exercises. Instead, respondents believe that hardware failure (22%), user error (22%) and unforeseen and unexpected errors (21%) as the top-ranking risks to corporate data loss. Only 11% believe that poor internal controls and data governance will be a top three risk, despite the fact that so many backup systems fail and mean that data cannot be restored.

Robin England, Senior Research & Development Engineer, Kroll Ontrack UK commented: "Upgrades and data migration are part of the day-to-day IT workload, so it is alarming to see that so many organisations are experiencing data loss because their backups fail for whatever reason. Organisations need to ensure that they have a rigorous backup strategy in place. While they should check their capability to restore frequently, it's especially important before a migration."
More info: www.krollontrack.co.uk