4 Common Causes of Data Loss

Have you ever been putting the finishing touches on a school paper or work project, only to have your computer crash? It’s a terrifying moment as you frantically reboot and try to remember the last time you saved that file—if you saved it at all. Now imagine if that school paper was an entire drive’s worth of vital business documents. You can probably see how such a loss could lead to the business’s failure. But what could cause such a significant loss to occur? Here are just four common causes of business data loss.

Hardware Failure

The most prominent cause of data loss is related to hardware or system failure. Sometimes, a storage drive experiences an irreparable failure, or a computer crashes and can’t be rebooted. When this happens, the data stored on that computer or in that drive is often irretrievable. If that’s the only location where vital data is stored, then you have a severe problem on your hands.

Human Error

Simple human error accounts for more data loss than you might think. As the saying goes, “To err is human,” which sometimes includes erasing a drive or necessary file by mistake. Occasionally, deleted data can be restored by an IT expert. But other times, human error causes permanent data loss that no amount of tech knowledge can fix. You can only hope that the deleted information exists somewhere else that you can still retrieve it.

Corruption and Viruses

Most people have experienced the cold sweat that arises when you get that terrifying error message on your computer: “File corrupted.” A corrupted file often means that the data it contained is permanently gone. If you’re lucky, your IT guy can restore an older version of the file but don’t hold your breath.

Viruses can cause similar issues with files, either corrupting them or erasing them. Or, in some cases, the virus can cause the hardware to fail, leading to the first problem mentioned in this article.

Hardware Destruction

While most hardware issues are internal, now and then, some external force will destroy the hardware, therefore destroying all of the virtual information it contains. More often than not, hardware destruction is caused by some natural disaster, like a flood or a fire. If such a disaster hits your office, any data stored onsite could be lost forever.

As you can see, there are many ways your company’s data can be lost for good. Hopefully, this gives you an idea of how important it is to use professional data backup from IT managed service providers in Orlando, FL.