Answer Maximizing The Life Of Your Hard Drive
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. Thatâs 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
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.
Windows Makes It Easy To Defrag Your Hard Drive
Simply launch the Disk Defragmenter utility (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools), choose which disk or partition youâd 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 Small Power Surge Can Fry a Hard Drive
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 driveâs 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 wonât 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.
Itâs 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
All modern hard drives have a self-monitoring technology called SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology). What most people donât 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 youâre 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.
Alex Bezborodov is the technical writer for Accurate Data Recovery, specializing in data recovery for end users, academia and small businesses. Check out the ADR Resource Center for more useful information.
Let ADR bring your data back to life!
Top brands: 1 being best
1. Seagate (models since 1998 only) Cheaply made, but getting much better. I never thought I would be putting Seagate back on the top of the list but.... Seagate now has the fewest failures of all the drives made now. They do make cheap consumer models, but they also have a much better line of drives that cost a little more. Your drive, is not the item you want to try to save a buck on!
2. IBM - Notebook and desktop drives. There are issues with electro-mechanical failures and or head crash on their high speed IDE drives 40GB or greater. The 40, 45, 60 and 75 gb drives are really starting to go bad now, especially the drives manufactured in late 2000 and all of 2001. These can go without warning, so please keep them backed up! We have been seeing a lot of the 75gb drives come in now as well as the 45's and 60's. There is a class action lawsuit ongoing about the 75gb drives. A new development.. Hitachi has recently purchased 70% of the IBM hard drive division. I can't wait to see how many of these we get in the future! ( Hitachi is known for failures). Yet another thorn in the side of the consumer! I should mention that their SCSI line of drives is a good product still.
3. Fujitsu (Desktop drives only) Their 10, 15, 20 and 30gb desktop models have been failing left and right with either servo loss or electronic failure. Notebook drives are only so-so but are no longer manufactured. They have had so many returned drives, that they have stopped making drives all together.
4. Maxtor (We are seeing more and more of these as failed) see below. You get what you pay for. Do not use these in server or business applications! If you do, keep them backed up like there is no tomorrow! These are consumer drives only!
5. Toshiba (notebook drives only). Good engineering! Generally good all the way around, but can develop bad heads in some models. As always, just keep it backed up.
6. Quantum. Has had a bad batch of drives with a defective chip incl. the Fireball⢠CX,LA,LB,LC and KX series. Maxtor now owns Quantum (got them at a good price too!). We have been seeing a large number of the Quantum ASxxxx series drives come in with missing outer servo, especially the 40gb drives, similar to the problem Fujitsu has. This is an unrecoverable situation! Beware.
7. Samsung also known as Trigem in E-machines (Inexpensive, you get what you pay for!) Cheaply made, consumer use only but do a religious backup!
8. Western Digital (They still haven't learned, their drives are still failing left and right). Cheaply made. Especially the 'EB' series. The 20gb AB and EB series are horrible. Again, I urge you not to use these in business applications. These have servo problems too which are starting to surface.
Worst Models Ever: 1 being worst
1. Western Digital AC1XXX, AC2XXX and AC3XXX series except AC31000 (Prone to severe head crash).
2. Quantum Bigfoot Series (any model) Prone to many severe failures. Cheap drives that never should have been made. These were used heavily by Compaq, to keep their costs down!
3. Quantum Fireball CX,CR,LA,LB,LC,KX All have defective spin chips and will fail without warning! Quantum was bought by Maxtor 07-01.
4. Conner CFS850A and CFS1275A (Some of the most RMA'd drives of all time).
5. Hitachi Notebook drives of any kind (Almost always head crash or lose servo or suffer from misalignment) Don't use them! If you have to, backup! Used exclusively (because they got a good deal) by Dell! If you order a Dell, request a different drive or go elsewhere.
6. Fujitsu Notebook drives of any kind are prone to head crash, desktop drives are bad now too, sorry. Again, they have stopped making drives and now barely support what is left out there.
7. Samsung drives of any kind (Either head crash, or stiction (heads stick to the platters)) Cheaply manufactured.
8. Toshiba MK2103MAV and MK2101MAN 2.5" drives (Prone to severe head crash, heavily RMA'd)
9. NEC drives of any kind (Poor engineering causes many failures, no longer making desktop drives)
10. JTS any model (Prone to head crash, cheap drives, now out of business)
11. Maxtor 7850, 71336, 71260, 72004 (All had defective head stops, heads fly off platters and break off)
12. Maxtor 10GB, 20GB, 30GB any model are crashing at an alarming rate! Severe electrical problems as well. These are consumer drives at best. Back them up now! Do not use for business applications.
13. Seagate Elite 9GB SCSI (Poor engineering promotes severe head crash).
14. Seagate 32140A (Prone to severe head crash, heavily RMA'd drive).
15. Seagate 5xxx series (Prone to head crash and or broken head wires).
16. Micropolis (Almost always head crash, what else is new? They have been out of business now for 5 years).
