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Strategies for Maximizing the Life of Your Hard Drive |
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If I asked you the question: which part of your computer
is the most fragile, what would you say? What if I asked:
which part is most important to you?
Often, the answer to both of these questions is your Hard
Drive.
Your hard drive is likely one the most important things you
own. It contains work data, school data, emails, photos, music,
movies, tax information, etc… Incidentally, the hard
drive is also one of only two moving components in your computer
(the other being your optical drive). The following is a list
of important maintenance and monitoring techniques you can
use to maximize the life of your hard drive and prevent data
loss.
Hard drives are physically fragile – handle with care
Statistics show that 25% of lost data is due to a failure
of a portable drive. (Source: 2001 Cost of Downtime Survey
Results)
Contrary to its seemingly rugged appearance, your hard disk
is a very delicate device that writes and reads data using
microscopic magnetic particles. Any vibration, shock, and
other careless operation may damage your drive and cause or
contribute to the possibility of a failure. This is especially
relevant for notebook users, as they are most at risk of drive
failure due to physical damage, theft, and other causes beyond
their control. That’s why we recommend regular backup
of notebook hard drives, as often as possible.
Possible solutions include external USB or Firewire drives
(although these are prone to the same risks), desktop synchronization,
or backup at a data center through the web.
Hard drives write data in a non-linear way forcing it to
become fragmented.
When files accumulate on your hard drive, they do not just
get written in a linear fashion. A hard drive writes files
in small pieces and scatters them over the surface. The fuller
your hard drive becomes and the more files you save and delete
the worse file fragmentation can be. Hard drive access times
increase with fragmentation since your drive must work harder
to find all the pieces of the files. The more fragmented your
data is, the harder the actuator arm has to work to find each
piece of a file.
A case in point: Disk fragmentation is a common problem for
users of Outlook Express and database software. Each time
outlook saves new mail, it does so in a different physical
location from the previous time. This results in extreme fragmentation,
causing longer hard drive access times and forcing more strain
on the heads. This strain can eventually lead to a head crash,
and often that means a virtually unrecoverable drive.Finally,
in the event of a total crash, a fragmented drive is much
more difficult to recover then a healthy defragged drive.
Luckily, Windows makes it remarkably easy to defrag your
hard drive, simply launch the Disk Defragmenter utility (Start
> Programs > Accessories > System Tools), choose
which disk or partition you’d like to defragment and
set it to work overnight or while you are not actively using
your computer. Defragmentation will speed up your computer
and ensure a longer life for your hard drive.
A very small power surge can fry a hard drive – use
a UPS and turn off your computer when you can
Another little-known fact about the fragility of your hard
drive is its susceptibility to electrical failure. An electrical
failure can be caused by a power surge, lightening strikes,
power brown-outs, incorrect wiring, a faulty or old power
supply, and many other factors. If a power surge enters your
computer, it may do an unpredictable amount of damage, including
destroying your hard drive’s electronics or crashing
the heads and possibly resulting in total data loss.
The best way to protect your computer from such dangers is
to use a highly rated protected power bar or an Uninterruptible
Power Supply (UPS). Although these devices won’t eliminate
the chances of a crash, they will serve as effective protection
in most cases. Also, you can minimize the danger of an electrical
problem and reduce wear of your hard drive by turning off
your computer or using power-save modes whenever possible.
It’s a known fact that 100% of drives fail, the question
is when will it happen and will you be prepared? Make sure
to check out the knowledgebase section of our website for
more detailed information on how electrical power affects
your computer.
Be SMART, monitor the health of your drive to prevent unexpected
crashes
All modern hard drives have a self-monitoring technology
called SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology).
What most people don’t realize is that the majority of
hard drive failures do not have to be unexpected. Most failures
occur as a result of long-term problems which can be predicted.
By regularly monitoring disk health and performance, you can
know about potential hard drive problems before you lose any
of your data.
Several excellent utilities are available, including DiskView
and Stellar SMART for standard IDE and SATA desktop drives.
Also available are tools that monitor the health of SCSI drives
and full RAID Array systems. Ariolic Software offers a great
utility called ActiveSMART.
The only fool-proof way to prevent data loss is... Backup!
If you only take one of the suggestions here to heart, let
it be this one: always back up your important data. After
all the monitoring and all the prevention measures are in
place, one fact still remains: all hard drives fail. Backing
up regularly will ensure that you’re never caught without
your critical data. For individuals, the simplest solutions
include external portable hard drives, dvd’s, and online
storage. For businesses, we recommend renting space at a secure
data centre and implementing a disaster recovery plan, regardless
of the size of your business.
I hope that the above techniques give you some idea of the
importance of hard drive maintenance and provide some insights
in how you can protect yourself from data loss.
About the Author:
Article by Alex Bezborodov
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