Businesses must invest in long-term storage solutions and not skimp by wrongly opting for short-term systems, according to backup specialist Quantum.

The survey found that over half of 109 storage vendors interviewed noted that customers were spending less money in long-term technology due to tighter budgets, with many customers postponing or outright cancelling a number of projects.

Organisations needed consistent backup and, by extension, disaster recovery plans to ensure that a data leak would not hit them, Northern Europe sales director at Quantum Steve Mackey said.

"Thinking long-term is of utmost importance and enables a cost-effective and future-proofed strategy to be implemented. It is vital that future requirements for capacity and performance are taken into account," he added.

Prospective disaster recovery systems must run impact assessment to address potentially damaging incidents which could affect income before investing money into a project, according to the Contingency Planning and Disaster Recovery Guide.

A recent survey for Connect found that one in ten companies has lost important data as a result of a backup failure. The company has now developed a unique online backup service - http://www.connect.co.uk/services/online_backup – for SMEs to ensure they can survive any disaster.