Home PC users have very similar requirements to large commercial IT departments when it comes to data backup and protection, according to industry analysts.

IDC's latest primary research into the home data protection market shows that, like corporations, consumers have "substantial concerns" about the loss of their digital information, and believe that they should protect their growing catalogues of PC, photographic, music and video content.

Fully understanding this need is an emerging business opportunity for commercial storage suppliers, the analyst firm noted.

"The home data protection market is in the pioneering/early-adopter phase," said Robert Gray, vice president of worldwide storage systems research at IDC.

"It is still early for broadly successful products for consumers' emerging and unique requirements. Further characterisation is easily justified to better understand the expanding opportunity."

Among the biggest consumer concerns over the dangers to data identified by the research was malicious acts such as hacking, theft and viruses.

According to the IDC study, consumers are more worried about losing data files stored on their PC than about the loss of digital camera images or MP3 music files.