7 Helpful Tips to Prevent Hard Drive Failure

Hard drives are useful for storing large amounts of information in a compact storage space. They have been in use over the past few decades and have helped a ton of people across the world store their information safely and also carry that information across places and devices. Unfortunately, the lifespan of a hard drive isn’t infinite as it is a mechanical device with moving parts.

The hard drive functions with the help of a spindle that spins magnetic disks at high speeds and reads write data from them via magnetic encoding. As we all know, friction causes wear and tear which makes the hard drives lose their effectiveness after some time.

While there is no way to prevent this inevitable doom of a hard drive, there are ways in which you can extend its lifespan. These methods will not only postpone the mechanical failure of your drive but will also prevent other kinds of damage such as heat damage from occurring.

What is Heating in a Computer and How to Reduce it?

Just like your car, your computer also heats up when it is being used. Its various parts including the CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage generate heat. Hard drives are more prone to producing heat as they have moving parts. For most computers, the cooling system is sufficiently equipped to dispel this excess heat as it arrives. However, in some older computers, the colling system isn’t able to keep up with the heating and this causes the computer to slow down since heat increases resistance in electrical circuits and causes loss of power.

How Does Your Computer Heating Affect Your Hard Drive?

Hard drive crashes are common in computers that heat up without sufficient cooling within them. This is quite common during the summer months especially in homes without air conditioning. While your computer may have the latest thermal paste and copper tubing connected to the CPU, it will not help the Hard Drive unless you provide specific cooling for it. This heating can greatly affect the lifespan of your hard drive and in turn that of your data.

How Do Temperatures Affect the Life Span of Hard Drives?

Hard drives are manufactured to function in a certain temperature region. Whether your hard drive is from Seagate or Western Digital, you are going to experience the effects of heat on it once the ambient temperature inside your computer case reaches above 40 C. Apart from simply being lethal to the data within your drive, this temperature can also bring damage to the components within it.

Why Does Temperature Affect the Performance of Your Hard Drive?

Increasing the temperature of your hard drive can be detrimental to its lifespan as well since it can make your drive lose efficiency and increase the damage caused by mechanical wear. It can also be lethal to the data inside and cause data loss even without any mechanical failure.

Also Read: How to Increase Hard Drive Performance on Windows

Tips for Prevention of Hard Drive Failure

Here are seven of the best tips and preventive measures you can take to protect your hard drive against most kinds of drive failure and data loss.

Create a Backup

Having a backup of your data is always a good idea as it gives you an easy spot to restore from in case anything goes wrong. This can help you when your hard drive needs to operate without sufficient cooling.

Shut Down

Shutting down or powering off your computer is an important step that most people miss out on. This avoids unnecessary heating within the case.

Clean the Vents and Fans

Cleaning the fans and vents of your computer or laptop on a regular basis will allow it to correctly keep up with the buildup of heat within and expel it out at high speeds.

Use an Air Conditioner

Working inside an air-conditioned environment will obviously benefit your computer and allow it to function correctly for longer. This will also help to cool your CPU and other components properly during intensive tasks.

Also Read: Opting For Hard Drive Data Recovery Service

Don’t Place Your Laptop on a Bed

Placing your laptop on a bed will block the bottom vents and fan of your laptop which will further increase the heating. It will also insulate the heat from your hard disk and cause it to flow towards your keyboard instead.

Avoid Dropping Your Hard Drive

Dropping your hard drive can break it quite easily as it is made of several delicate parts. Please avoid doing by securing it within your computer or inside a case that can protect it.

Call an Expert

It is always better to call a data recovery expert than to rely on the internet for DIY solutions. Doing the latter can actually be counterproductive and result in permanent data loss.

If you experience data loss and need hard drive recovery Melbourne, please feel free to get in touch with the recovery squad today. Our expert engineers will ensure that you are reunited with your data as soon as possible.