Many companies are failing to implement disaster recovery correctly, according to a new report by VMware.

The company said that business will hopefully never have to suffer a major disaster during their history.

VMware continued: "Having an effective disaster recovery plan with sufficient documentation, adequate testing, and well trained staff will increase your chances of survival when faced with a minor or major catastrophe."

Many companies are not identifying exactly which information is critical to a firm's security, it was noted, with many files containing sensitive data that is overlooked.

Furthermore, the organisation notes, many companies only keep hold of old back-ups and do not update them, making data recovery useless and open to becoming corrupted over time.

VMware stated that one of the worst things a company could do when utilising online backup storage is making passwords too hard to find or remember, as one mistake here could lock an entire company out of its own information.

According to information provider Disaster Recovery World, such a system is essential to a business continuity plan but is often sidestepped, to the detriment of a company's future.

New research from Connect found that, on average, it takes businesses that use backup tapes take 11.6 hours to retrieve and restore files. Connect is now recommending that SMEs switch to online backup.