How to make hard disk live longer?

[al3x]

Tips are welcome.

for example 1 have 1 HD that works 24/7 , for fil exchange / downloads and sharing stuff between home computers

[craig6928]

well the key to making a drive last longer is
defrag it every month
so its not searching for the files when they are all mixed up
and the other option is keeping it cool with fans
or using this below

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2578

or better still a Water cooling systems might be better in your case
because of the overload it might get.

keeping the hard drive at optimum temperature
will make it happy and work with out over heating.

[thatdellguy]

I put a fan on every internal or external hard drive.

[chinopk]

Well 1 thing is very important, especially in countries where non-branded systems are used, the power supply comes with the non-branded casing is not very good, i think using a good power supply will also help hard drive for longer life.

[hddguy]

I think a more realistic topic should say 'How do I avoid Data Loss'.

All disks wil fail, does not matter how well maintained.

[gus]

I would put it in a box and never use it.