Only one in ten small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Wales have effective disaster recovery plans, according to new research.

Circle IT, which carried out the survey of 50 businesses, shows that in the event of a severe interruption of day-to-day operations a significant majority would not be able to cope.

Many SMEs revealed that their disaster recovery plans only go as far as a back-up on-site hard drive, which could potentially be lost in the event of a fire or flood.

Roger Harry, managing director of Circle IT, said: "We surveyed Welsh organisations in recent months and found that although all reported they had back-ups, nearly all were vulnerable to data loss - despite thinking that they would be in the clear."

He added the belief that in nearly every case the back-up system was inadequate and could result in data and vital system and information being lost.

In April, Computing.co.uk announced that Leeds NHS was implementing a virtualised disaster recovery structure.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent)