Data Storage Overview: Why Are External Devices Still Relevant?

A report by Western Digital has revealed that more than 1 out of 4 PC users in India has lost their data.

It’s always good to back-up data on a physical hard disk.

(Photo: iStock)

With cyber attacks increasing everyday, backing up your digital data has never been more important.

A report by Western Digital has revealed that more than one out of every four PC users in India has lost their content or data in the past.

The storage landscape has dramatically changed in recent years with the introduction of cloud storage services. Uploading your data to a company’s server has become easier and cheaper than keeping your own physical hard storage devices.

However, the rising data leakage from company’s cloud storage has raised several questions regarding the data privacy of users. So is it really the time to completely switch over to cloud storage or are hard disks still relevant? Here’s everything we know.

‘Back-up Behaviour Evolved Over The Years’

The study by Western Digital further revealed that more than one in every four PC users in India has lost their content or data in the past, yet one in every two respondents does not take a complete back-up of their content.

However, the younger generation aged between 22-35 years, who are also the trend drivers, understand the importance of their data – with over 82% of them backing up their data regularly.

“On delving deeper to understand this high level of inertia towards data back-up, we realised it is because of behavioural as well as circumstantial reasons. People consider backing up data as a time-consuming and tedious process,” Jaganathan Chelliah, Director of Marketing, India, Western Digital told The Quint.

High Number of Data Breaches

The pandemic has forced people to adapt to remote working conditions, due to which millions of people globally are relying on cloud computing platforms.

A recent survey conducted by The Security Magazine has revealed that nearly 80 percent of the companies surveyed had experienced at least one cloud data breach in the past 18 months, and nearly half 43 percent reported 10 or more breaches.

Safety is a rising concern with cloud storage devices due to recent controversies where users’ data was exposed to cyber criminals who can potentially misuse the data and cause harm to life and property.

Data Thefts Can be Reduced

While cloud storage claims to provide high security protection, it doesn’t mean that it is impossible to hack your data. Recently, Microsoft Cloud Exchange servers were hacked after Chinese hackers found vulnerability which reportedly exposed emails of 60,000 users globally.

With the usage of hard storage devices embedded with password protection, targeting it can be extremely difficult.

Chelliah explained that data thefts are unfortunately becoming an exceedingly common issue and external storage devices come well equipped with encryptions that allow security of the data saved in those drives.

What Should You Go For: Hard Storage or Cloud Storage?

The best answer is ‘both’. You should consider both online and offline solution as each has its distinct benefits and drawbacks. To ensure that your data remains safe you should perform regular back-ups on both the storage solutions.

“Our market study revealed that close to 5 percent of users back up their data on Cloud. Cloud is a good backup option. However, It is important to have a dual back-up strategy – a physical storage device and also Cloud back-up, essentially for shared content”.

Jaganathan Chelliah, Director of Marketing, India, Western Digital told<b> The Quint</b>