Although the systems of cloud storage are gaining ground as a place to keep part of our digital life, continues to dominate the local storage, either in the form of internal / external hard disk or USB / SSD. Except catastrophe, one hopes that the lifespan of the hard disk is high enough to stop worrying. But really, for one reason or another it is not.
An internal or external hard drive (even SSD) to fail and we start to worry about how to recover information are multiple. But it is in our power to take easy and simple precautions. Take note of the tips, tricks and instructions to prevent a hard disk failure or spoilage and thus can lose valuable information.
Tips for caring for a hard drive and improve your life
Classic, USB or SSD, the appearance of these hard disk drives sometimes give us who are immune to everything that happens to them. But it’s not like that. The life of a hard drive is not eternal but we can take into account a series of actions and care that will help us keep in good condition a hard disk, either from your computer or any external model.
The basics would make sure that the components are quality. Here we refer first to the hard drive, but we should not limit ourselves only to this item. A common failure of hard drives have to do with food, so it is appropriate that we make sure the quality and suitability of the power of our desktop.
We must also prevent power outages cause failures on the hard disk, and nothing would work better protection strips or better, UPS to perform a key task to keep in good condition the hard disk.
If we are working with a desktop computer tower type, where and how care is placed on your hard drive will not take us long. Mechanics should take a horizontal position; they are well anchored and protected against vibrations. If we can avoid that is very well surrounded by other elements or cables that may impair ventilation and cause working more suitable temperature, the better.
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HDD care requires not only physical but also processes tasks as simple and accessible to all as a defragmentation
Cleaning of components is key and a mechanical hard drive is perhaps even more, so take care that no dust or foreign matter from accumulating. And do not forget that static electricity is one of the natural enemies of electronic components.
As in the case of internal hard disks, external drives we must ensure that the cables are in good condition and properly connected. And also avoid falls, more common since usually placed on the table or shelf and place it in places at certain times to offer extreme temperature conditions.
Taking care to avoid hard disk failure includes not only physical work but also at the software level. The most immediate is the defragmentation, available to all users through the tool itself that includes Windows, which can not only improve the team’s performance but also reduce the accumulation of elements that facilitate some bugs that can cause cannot access to information that contains a hard disk.
Also, do not forget to enable your computer case to put to rest the hard disk when not in use so that we can scratch your life more delicate while saving energy components.
Know the status of your disk and go ahead to failure
In addition to the care / maintenance of the hard disk, the most current hard drives leave us a simple way to know their status to anticipate a possible failure. If we are able to detect it can launch a recovery process or make a new backup in case of not having done it in a while.
Hard disks include for years called SMART technology with its own hard drives have the tools and information needed to monitor themselves for possible errors of different kinds. These mistakes can correct themselves or notify the user to take the necessary measures.
In our case we will use that information the SMART technology provides us, through programs such as Crystal Disk Info, track the status of the hard disk. This application, free of charge, gives us various information of the hard disk status, including her temperature data from hard drive, operating hours … The best is the simple color code with which to know what the status of the hard disk at all times. No need to be looking all the time but occasionally. By the time it passes a way of risk and no possibility of coming problems, and we can start or accelerate solutions at our disposal.
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Think about where you keep valuable data
Given the many options available today to be physically stored offline and our most valuable information is a general recommendation that you should keep in mind: Do not store the information in one place nor in any.
If you can choose, the better the most valuable information stored on hard drives or computers that do not move too much to avoid accidents that may damage
Since hard disks tend to suffer a lot with drops, shock and vibration, especially if the hard disk is running at that time, should you have the most valuable information you scroll little equipment. If you do it on a computer, it better be in the desktop rather than a laptop, which will be more times moving and of course more exposed to fall, vibration or accidents.
If you prefer to use external solutions as best available backup or desktop NAS in external portable. If despite everything you need to move often valuable information, do not forget that there are external solutions specially designed to withstand drops, shocks, high temperatures or even water.
Make a backup of your hard drive
In technology, we want the minimum surprises. So in the case of hard disks, it is best to prevent. If your hard drive is going to be next to fail or want to minimize problems disaster, should be prepared to overcome without more damage than physical.
Before mourn the loss of information or having to recover a crashed hard drive should perform backups and maintenance to lengthen the life of our precious hard drive
The best recommendation we must do to avoid loss of valuable information on a hard drive is to back up. With the affordable price with hard drives, in all its forms, from internal to external, it is an action that requires not much investment and time to which can mean disaster to the primary hard disk where we usually store personal information, work and multimedia files.
To make a backup we can choose to do it manually storing periodically files you do not want to lose to an external hard disk, for example. This method is very common for photographs or personal documents, but today there are software solutions even integrated into the operating system that gives us much that task.
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In Windows programs have both free and Paragon or even pay, but the tool that includes Windows 10 is going to serve well, because it is the most complete that has ever been on this operating system. With it the user can back up individual files which restore different older versions of specific parts or the whole system completely.
In conducting and managing Mac backup it is built in a year in a very intuitive way with Time Machine. Just connect a hard disk and tell you where and when we want to create backups.
All or some of these backup solutions we will need a second hard drive to store information. The most affordable is to have a laptop or desktop external hard copies for both manual and automatic (it is usual that the own brands of these hard drives pre-installed with software to automate backups such as WD SmartWare), but also there is the option of having a NAS (or the alternative of a networked hard drive, with its advantages and disadvantages) where you can even automate the backup of backup.
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