60% of South Africans don't back up, across multiple devices

Only sheer luck prevents most from losing personal photos, videos and files in this digital chaos.

Carried out amongst 1,000 South African adult respondents, the study was conducted to celebrate the launch of the company's new family of personal cloud storage solutions, My Cloud. The research also found that although 89% of South Africans claim they are organised in their daily lives, the complete opposite could be said for their digital footprint.

The research found that South Africans use a plethora of devices, including mobile phones, tablets, laptops, personal computers and USB sticks. Of those that do not back up, 40% blamed their busy schedule and 15% said they cannot be bothered.

Earning pocket money, children backup parents' files

With many having a personal reluctance to be digitally organised, 50% of parents have even admitted they'd rather pay their children to back up their files for them rather than go through the hassle of doing it themselves. Organising parents' digital content is the new household chore, replacing the traditional pocket money earner of gardening work up and cleaning the car, which ranked in third and second place respectively.

Although South Africans are digital scatterbrains, it appears they fare slightly more favourably compared to their European counterparts. Of the five European countries involved in the study, Spain was cited as the most digitally disorganised using sixteen devices, with the Germans and Italians not far behind with fifteen each.

Anamika Budree, sales manager for WD branded products in South Africa said, "With almost one in five South Africans admitting they don't know how to back up their all important data, the new My Cloud personal cloud device enables people to organise their data in one place and on one device and access it anywhere immediately, making sharing easier than ever before."

Price, availability

The My Cloud system is currently available at select retailers and online at www.wdstore.com or as a mobile app from the App Store and Google Play. The 2 terabyte (2 TB) is available for R1,799.00, R2,199.00 for 3 TB and R2,699.00 for 4 TB, which will be available shortly.