What commonly leads to data loss?

Hardware failure is a significant cause of data loss because it involves physical components of a computer system, such as hard drives, solid-state drives, motherboards, and power supplies malfunctioning or breaking down. When these components fail, they can lead to the loss of data stored on them, since the data may become inaccessible or irretrievable. This can occur due to various reasons, including wear and tear, manufacturing defects, or unexpected events like power surges or overheating.

While other factors such as software bugs, configuration errors, and network congestion can potentially contribute to data integrity issues or accessibility problems, they do not directly cause data stored on physical hardware to become unrecoverable in the same way that a hardware failure does. Understanding the risks associated with hardware failure is crucial for implementing appropriate data backup and recovery strategies to mitigate the impact of such events.