Time flies. I can’t believe one year has passed, since I wrote about World Backup Day and the importance of backing up your data. I took the pledge last year to be diligent about backing up, and for the most part, I backed up my data on a regular basis. However, I am somewhat surprised to learn that according to the World Backup Day (www.worldbackupday.com) site, a sizeable percentage of people have never backed up. The site’s statistics show that almost one third of people across the U.S. don’t practice backing up and as a result are at risk of losing all of their valuable data. Equally shocking to me is the site’s data showing that 1 in 10 computers are infected with viruses each month and 113 phones are lost or stolen every minute!
My astonishment with these statistics must be because I work in the hard disk drive industry. There really is no excuse to not back up your data anymore, since the process of backing up a computer’s or tablet’s data to an external HDD has become so easy. For example, take our Canvio® Flex external hard drive. This external HDD is capable of storing data from multiple devices with different operating systems (Mac®, Windows®, iPadOS®, Android™)¹. We have a great video clip showcasing these capabilities (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfErn_G7gYE).
Based on the most recent data from TRENDFOCUS Inc., sales of the Canvio® external HDD have helped Toshiba become the industry’s fastest growing 2.5” external HDD company in 2020. Toshiba’s 2.5” external HDD sales shot up nearly 20% Y-Y compared to our competitor’s growth rate of only 1-2%². In terms of capacity, Toshiba’s exabtyes increased 16% Y-Y while competitors’ similar products only managed single digit growth for the year3.
If it is indeed true that 30% or more of the people do not back up their data, which means out of 10 of my friends, 3 are not backing up. Given the amount of time everyone is spending on their PCs and tablets nowadays, it is even more important to back up. So, in celebration of World Backup Day this year, it will be my mission to convince at least 3 people to back up their data on March 31. And then maybe, just maybe, the percentage of everyone in the U.S. that do not back up their data will be a bit lower next year.
1 Compatibility may vary depending on user‘s hardware configuration and operating system. Reformatting required for use with Apple Time Machine. Please check device compatibility and connecting instructions by reviewing the applicable user manuals for such device. The latest information can be viewed online at https://www.canvio.jp/en/compati/hdd/ot_ehdd/flex/index.htm will open in a new window.
CANVIO is a trademark or registered trademark of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Windows and Microsoft are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
Mac and iPadOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Android and Android logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Google LLC.
² Source: TRENDFOCUS, Inc. (https://trendfocus.com)
3 Source: TRENDFOCUS, Inc. (https://trendfocus.com)
Toshiba defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes and a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1GB = 230 = 1,073,741,824 bytes and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system, such as Microsoft Operating System and/or pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.