Tips on Hard Disk Maintenance to Increase the life of your Hard Disk

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The hard disk is probably the most sensitive and weakest component of your computer. It’s also the most important(atleast for me, all my personal and financial info is in it) and if it crashes, you could lose important files, information and pictures and cause unrepairable damage to hard disk. Hard drives only last on average between three and five years. But by performing maintenance, you can significantly increase its life, probably past the point where it becomes obsolete.

The windows operating system has three built in function you can use to increase the life of your hard disk. Disk Defragmenter (defrag) is the most powerful program for routine maintenance. As you create, save and delete files, you leave blank spaces and bits of files or clusters on your hard disk. Defragging relocates files into an orderly structure, reducing the time it takes to process data and which reduces the stress on your hard disk. Another benefit of defragging is improved performance of your hard disk. Many computer professionals recommend defragging once a month.

The other two built in functions you can run are Disk Cleanup and ScanDisk. Disk Cleanup helps you sort through files and delete unneeded permanent and temporary files. By freeing up disk space, you reduce the effort required of your hard drive and also speed up its operation. ScanDisk is normally run automatically after your computer crashes or you shut it down improperly. ScanDisk can also be run through your utility functions. This program can perform an intensive scan and review of your hard disk for issues and can potentially detect errors, bad sectors or lost clusters which could make it difficult or impossible to write to your hard drive. The program can fix many of the problems it encounters.

Heat can cause great damage to your hard disk. That’s while all computers have built in fans. Your hard drive by itself creates a great deal of heat and coupled with external heat or a malfunctioning fan, this can cause fatal destruction of your hard disk. It’s also important to keep the vents clear to allow air to circulate around your hard disk. Another danger to your hard disk is vibrations. The hard drive is very sensitive and vibrations from big office equipment such as a speed copy machine could throw the sensitive mechanisms off. You also need to be careful of humidity. Sweating inside the tower can destroy your hard drive. Your computer should be stored in a clean dry environment at room temperature.

Always properly shut down your computer. Close all programs and save the recent updates of all documents. If a program stops responding, use the combination of Control/Alt/Delete and then select task list to try to close the program. I know this sounds very basic but still all these things keep on adding up to bring the dooms day!

Programs can get corrupted if not closed properly and cause more damage. It is essential to plug your computer into a surge protector. An increase in current could “fry” your hard disk rendering it useless and causing you to lose all your data. The surge protector is also important if you lose power and will protect your hard disk when power is restored.

By following these simple steps you can surely increase the life of your harddisk but here is a little piece of advice, get a additional harddrive with case and use it as backup. Just add it using usb, copy sensitive and important data and keep it in some secure location. As usual, comments and suggestions are welcomed.

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