The turbulent British summer leads to a surge in data loss incidents, according to industry experts.

Kroll Ontrack claims that it traditionally deals with around 12% more data recovery requests in the summer months than it does in the spring, with the weather largely to blame for the surge.

"We see peaks [in demand] soon after peaks in the ambient temperature," Kroll Ontrack's chief engineer, Robert Winter, told PC Pro.

"The stress on electrical devices increases if you elevate the temperature," Winter added. "If you have devices that are going to fail, the failure may be induced by the elevated temperature."

Winter claims failure rates tend to be higher among personal and small business users, rather than large companies, which tend to have air conditioning and humidity control. Laptops and disk drives being left in direct sunlight or in the back of cars is another common cause of failure, the Ontrack engineer added.