世論 What Japan Thinks

Surprisingly high levels of data security were uncovered in this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported by japan.internet.com into computer backups.

Demographics

Over the 18th and 19th of August 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I haven’t backed-up for ages and ages, although the wife pesters me to do it weekly or so. Hopefully now that we have our new PC with a DVD-R I can set up a regular schedule. Can anyone recommend good software for that? Talking of backups, I don’t do it for the blog either…

I’m surprised, however, at the numbers who do back up, and perhaps in the full survey we would find answers to questions like why did they start backing up, have they ever had to restore, and did the backups restore correctly.

Research results

Q1: How often do you back up your home computer? (Sample size=unclear)

Every day	8.0%
Once every three days	3.6%
Once a week	12.4%
Once every two weeks	5.8%
Once every three weeks	1.5%
Once a month	19.0%
Once every three months	26.3%
Other	15.3%
Don’t know	8.0%

From the sample 161 people, or 53.7%, used a computer at work. They were asked the following question.

Q2: How is your work computer backed up? (Sample size=161)

Backup myself (to SQ)	38.5%
Company backs up (to SQ)	24.2%
No backups are taken	26.7%
Don’t know	10.6%

Q3: How often is your work computer backed up? (Sample size=101)

Every day	28.7%
Once every three days	6.9%
Once a week	11.9%
Once every two weeks	2.0%
Once every three weeks	3.0%
Once a month	14.9%
Once every three months	6.9%
Other	9.9%
Don’t know	15.8%

In addition, 27.7% backed up to online storage (I presume that includes all remote backup, not just uploading to a web site), 21.8% to a hard disk, 20.8% to USB memory, and 15.8% to optical media.