More than a quarter of people don’t back up their photos, an exclusive Pro poll revealed.
The results of the survey of 1,000 people, conducted by OnePulse on our behalf suggest that a staggering number of users are leaving their old photos open to data loss in case of device failure or security breach.
Asked about their cloud storage data backup preferences and habits, 25.6% of respondents admitted not using photo cloud storage to protect your media.
When it comes to choosing a storage medium, the largest group of people (37.4%) choose physical drives over cloud storage (33.4%). This includes 12.2% who rely on USB flash drives5.6% backing up to tape and 19.6% using external hard drives and NAS drives.
Despite the consumer and enterprise cloud storage services playing a greater role in protecting our digital lives, physical devices in general remain the preferred solution.
The survey also revealed which cloud-based service is most popular, with more than half of respondents saying they “store photos primarily on Google”.
The majority (42.1%) opt for the free version, regardless of the upload and resolution limits imposed on those who do not subscribe Google One. But just under 20% pay for photo storage, either with Google or a Google Photos alternative.
Facebook proved to be a surprisingly popular choice, with 8.9% making use of the social network’s cloud facilities. Another 8.4% use other free services to store their photos.
reviewing results
Pro research offers a glimpse into how we are choosing to protect the media that matters most to us.
Today, videos and images are invaluable. Any painful loss – whether it’s a stolen device or a data breach – also carries big security and privacy implications.
However, resistance to backing up photos (as with the 21% who do not store images online) may, in part, be driven by other security and privacy concerns. It’s no secret that cloud data breaches are on the rise, causing confidence in technology companies to decline.
Companies may also be struggling to create and maintain a strong media backup process. With so many digital assets flowing between departments, the resources needed to properly catalog and store them takes time that most companies don’t have.
Promisingly, however, nearly 71% have photo backups in case of problems. And it’s almost neck-to-neck between physical and cloud storage, for now.
We expect online photo backup to take the lead in the future; it’s very convenient and integrated into daily life – not just on our phones and home computers. As with video conferencing, the switch to remote control and hybrid work means everyone is now familiar with cloud storage.