Complacent UK trails Europe in the storage stakes

Information storage practices in the UK are among the least efficient in Europe, according to a report commissioned by Hewlett-Packard. But this is far from apparent from the country's IT managers' responses: they have more faith in their storage systems than any of their continental counterparts, says the report.

The survey of 500 IT managers was carried out by Infratest Burke InCom. It compared the storage situation in six countries: the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and the UK.

Fourteen per cent of UK respondents said they have suffered 'significant data loss' in the last two years, a failure rate that puts them at the bottom of the European league table.

However, 91 per cent of UK organisations claimed their storage systems are efficient, while 36 per cent of UK IT managers expressed confidence in their systems' reliability - a figure that puts them at the top of the group.

The report said the key reasons for the lack of efficiency in the UK are lack of investment and an ongoing over reliance on manual back-up procedures.

Bob Peyton, director of European storage research at IDC, was critical of UK storage practices. "Many companies simply cross their fingers and hope that data loss will never happen to them, while many IT managers are failing to raise their investment in this area," he said.