Self Care Tips for HDD

[hitin]

I am an advance computer user, however I still lack skills of managing HDD's. I tried searching for a similar post to find out what are the best possible ways to take care of your internal, external or any other type of HDD's one may have.

I will like to ask you experts that what tips would you give, to make sure the drive last longer and how to take care of HDD.

Few questions which I have in mind as of now.

1) Is Disk De-Fragmentation a good option, should we use it and how often?
2) Using chkdsk or other windows utilities for disk, are they good?
3) Any specific software that help maintain good health of HDD and data?

Warm regards,
Hitin

[mr_spokk]

I would say, regular backup to a Raid 1
Todays drives will fail, some sooner than other...but they will fail.

[data-medics]

To answer your questions:

1. De-fragmentation is largely unnecessary in newer systems. Just ignore it, and leave the Windows default settings.
2. Chkdsk, isn't bad if the drive appears healthy and you just want to be sure you aren't developing bad sectors or it just has some file system corruption caused by a power outage while writing data. However it should never be used if you're already having issues with a hard drive as it will most likely kill it. Checking the SMART data using a util such as CrystalDisk is usually a better option to see what's going on.
3. Hard Drive = Hardware (EG can't be fixed/repaired/restored by software). Programs such as spinrite are just spammy garbage that is 10x more likely to kill the drive that fix anything and offer no benefits beyond what chkdsk can already do (force the drive to hit bad sectors until it either kills the drive or remaps the sector "fixing" it).

Hope it helps.

[Dmitri]

what are the best possible ways to take care of your internal, external or any other type of HDD's one may have.
...
1) Is Disk De-Fragmentation a good option, should we use it and how often?
2) Using chkdsk or other windows utilities for disk, are they good?
3) Any specific software that help maintain good health of HDD and data?

1) Defragmentation helps your PC to run faster. It generally shouldn't wear out the drive much unless you perform it two times a day on a drive containing data, which is constantly being modified, deleted and re-created.
Another slight plus is should the drive fail and you'll need to recover the data from it, results are likely to be much better, as file chunks will be all in one place and sorted properly.

2) CheckDisk can be used for a basic routine check, but be sure to avoid /F switch in case of any failures.

3) For Windows it's http://hddscan.com/

[HaQue]

I am an advance computer user, however I still lack skills of managing HDD's. I tried searching for a similar post to find out what are the best possible ways to take care of your internal, external or any other type of HDD's one may have.

I will like to ask you experts that what tips would you give, to make sure the drive last longer and how to take care of HDD.

Few questions which I have in mind as of now.

1) Is Disk De-Fragmentation a good option, should we use it and how often?
2) Using chkdsk or other windows utilities for disk, are they good?
3) Any specific software that help maintain good health of HDD and data?

Warm regards,
Hitin

aside from figuring out the best way to care for your HDD, the other question is how to care for your DATA which is arguably more important.

keep your files organised, and have a good/tested/proper backup. Whatever your solution, the backup system should be such that if you lose your HDD, you don't lose your DATA, or at least the important DATA.

You really have no way of knowing EXACTLY how reliable your HDD is. a slight bump at the wrong time can cause a head crash, you could trip over cords and drop HDD, or power surge/lightning etc..

IMHO I would get this sorted out before worrying about keeping your Hard drive happy..