How To Extend A Hard disk drive Lifespan

Learn how to extend hard disk drive lifespan, following the simple tips listed in the contents ahead.

How To Extend A Hard disk drive Lifespan

A hard disk drive (HDD) also known as a hard drive is a data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve digital information using one or more rapidly rotating disk(platters) coated with magnetic materials.

Although hard disk drives are so developed at this present age that they can hold data of up to 60 terabytes, they are still known as one of the most delicate components still. In bad situations when a hard disk drive crashes it means loss of data to a PC user, this is a frustrating thing for anybody to go through.

Read also: How to speed up a slow hard drive

Tips To Extend A Hard disk drive Lifespan

Here we are going to take a look at some very useful tips to keep our hard disk in top shape.

Tip 1 :

Be gentle; avoid colliding with objects or dropping the computer against hard surfaces. As it is written on most hard disk drive, the HDD are fragile and users most handle with so much care. Hard drives consist of a fragile component on the inside which could be displaced and damaged if mishandled.

Tip 2 :

Avoid heat. From simple physics, it is a well-known fact that cold makes things contract; while heat makes things expand. This heat transfer and consequential expansion of the hard drive could make the internal component warp

Tip 3 :

Avoid dust. Dust is bad for electronics and even worse that they occur naturally in the atmosphere. Dust acts as an insulator, an insulator is a non-conductor i.e an object or device through which electricity or heat cannot pass through.

Also read 5 benefits of cleaning temp files in windows

Therefore there is no heat transfer and heat remains wherever it is generated. dust creates a blockage while this disturbs efficient airflow as a result heat cannot be dissipated out of the system properly. This leaves the HDD in the torment of heat

Other tips are :

• Disable unnecessary services as this can cause heavy workload on the entire PC.
• Ensuring the disk is properly ejected before disconnecting (especially in external HDD)
• Do not overwork the computer system or handle tasks that are more demanding in requirement than what your HDD and/or CPU and/or GPU can render. This will overwork the system and more heat will be generated.
• Also be sure to shut down the system when not in use. This will relief all components and will slow down the aging process.
• Avoid blackouts – use a U.P.S where there is no stable power.
• perform a CHKDSK (pronounced check disk) this can help to fix corrupt sectors in the HDD.

Also read: How to increase the life of AC power adapters

Bonus tip:

Install a Solid state drive (SSD) as your primary storage and HDD as your backup storage.

Final words.

Always make sure you create a backup partition on your hard disk drive, keeping your OS and files on a single partition is not a good practice. However, when it comes to Solid-state drive the above tips almost irrelevant. SSDs are better storage device compare to HDDs, but also cost a lot more money for a lot less storage.

Recommended: How to transfer your Windows OS from one hard drive to another without fresh installation of windows