But the advance of technology over the years has forced the computer hard drive to change form and speed. Today, all consumers, be it a personal user or a commercial enterprise, use the hard drive in some form or the other. In 1989, Disklabs launched an initiative to educate the consumer about the hard drive. The culmination of this effort can be listed in the features of a hard drive:
Physically robust
Large storage space
Reliable
Lends itself to archiving
Has a finite lifespan of three—five years but can be stretched to six-eight years with proper maintenance and usage
Prone to data loss as it is highly susceptible to temperature variations, movement and dust or bacteria
Prone to virus attacks and man-made disasters of terrorism
Lends itself to data loss through electrical spikes
Easily accessible – can be easily recycled and sold by vendors
Equipped with inbuilt cooling systems of ventilation
Fragile disk interior with magnetic glass platters which are capable of spinning at high speeds
Interior disk is composed of micro electron particles which are charged with electricity
Thus, hard drive does form the nerve and pulse of computer data storage but their situation is doubtful. They suffer from many disadvantages and require the user to undertake optimal care and maintenance of the drive. Many times, the drive simply stops spinning or functioning due to an external natural or man-made disaster, or due to information overload. This usually happens in the case of old used hard drives which slow down after three years of prolonged use. It could also happen when the user uses recycled drives which already contain residual data and are, therefore, unable to save further data. Another reason could also be due to surface contamination. This could occur due to temperature variations including overexposure to light, heat and humidity. Research reveals that the drive’s magnetic layers simply dissolve in high level of heat or humidity. Sometimes, the drive stops spinning due to overheating. The user has to practise caution lest the tips of the magnetic platters collide causing a head disk crash.
Hard drives also fail when there is a controller failure. In other words, a hard drive experiences controller failure when an error message flashes across the computer screen during computer booting. Controller failures commonly occur when:
CMOS battery fails
Accidental user intervention leading to the saving of incorrect data in the CMOS setup
Adaptor is not firmly plugged into electrical slot
Hard drive or the motherboard corrupts or is damaged
Due to non- connectivity or non-installation of the hard disk drive
Hard disk drive cable wires have been twisted and broken
Master Boot Record or the partition tables in the driver become distorted or bent out of shape
Due to improper connection of the IDE drive
When the IDE drives i.e. the twin master and slave drive, are incompatible with each other
In short, a user has to undertake proper maintainence steps for the longevity and optimal functioning of the hard drive.
Movement: Movement including scratches, jars and pushes could successfully ruin a hard drive’s ability to save. To ensure faultless working of the drive i.e. an extended lifespan -- proper location care becomes extremely vital. Usually, drives, whether inputted in the computer or archived in a storage library, should be kept stationary. In short, there should be minimal movement of any kind. Movement usually causes the alignment of the drive to become fragmented.
Maintenance
Avoid holidaying with your hard drive
Try not to expose the drive to extreme heat, light and humidity
Keep the drive away from pets to avoid urination and chewing
Avoid prolonged usage of the drive
Try to constantly cool the hard drive by keeping it below high-speed fans
Always keep the hard drive dust-free by dusting it with a soft and dry tissue cloth.
Always run Scandisk and Defrag computer applications periodically to clean the internal magnetic structure of the drive. In addition, the two applications check for errors – logical and software errors.
Defragment your hard drive once a month to avoid hard drive failures and for easy data access.
Installation of good virus protection programs such as McAfee or Norton to prevent hard drive failures from virus contamination
S.M.A.R.T. Hardware Monitoring (Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology)
Tracks and displays read/ write access for logical volumes
Tracks and displays current storage capacity for logical volumes
Provision of automatic monitoring of all S.M.A.R.T. properties
Tracks and controls current temperatures for all hard disk drives – to ensure adequate heat, light and humidity levels
Displays total finite hard drive lifespan – allowing the user to know the exact operational hard drive time left
Provides warning notification
Allows for the correction of possible operational errors
Supports all Windows-compatible data volumes
Supports SCSI-disk drives
