How To Take Care Of Your Hard Disk Drive

Learn how to take care of your hard drive easily and effectively.

Hard drive is the sturdy rectangular-shaped hardware component found inside your CPU casing. It is where all of your important data are permanently stored — at least only until you delete them or until your hard drive crashes, and the latter isn't exactly inevitable. With proper care, you can add a few months or even years of file storage on top of your hard disk's expected lifespan.

There are a lot of ways you can take good care of your hard drive. The methods ranges from installing other hardware components, to using hard disk maintenance applications, to wiping-off dusts.

Here are some of the easiest yet most efficacious ways you must know and you should do to take care of your hard disk:

1. Install exhaust fans - exhaust fans have been proven-effective in keeping the temperature inside your CPU casing cool. Inside that casing, you will find all of the most hardworking hardware components of your computer — processor, motherboard, hard disk, etc. These components function for as long as your PC is on, making them susceptible to overheating. And what exhaust fans can do is they vent out the heated air inside your CPU to keep the temp down, thus eliminating one of the most common causes of hard drive crashes — overheating.

2. Install anti-virus software - when my knowledge about computers was still on its infancy, i thought that viruses, since it's just a software, can only do harm to other software applications. Unfortunately, I thought wrong; fortunately, I realized this before I had to learn it the hard way. Countless studies and actual experiences have proven that viruses, trojans, spyware, and the likes doesn't only slows your hard disk's performance but also shorten its lifespan. One effective way of safeguarding your hard disk from unwanted viruses is by installing an anti-virus application. There are a lot of potent anti-virus software out there that you can download — you can even get some for free. Check out this site to know how to get a free anti-virus http://sites4free.blogspot.com

3. Installing software monitoring tools - a software monitoring tool is a freeware that you can use to monitor the temperature of your hard disk. This is another free and effective way to prevent your hard drive from overheating. To learn how and where to download this software go to http://sites4free.blogspot.com

4. Regularly perform "scan disk" and "defragmentation" - if your computer has never ever tasted what its like to be scanned and fixed for errors and defragged for fragmented hard drive clusters, I'd definitely say "Man, you're not a good master". If the reason why you haven't done them yet is you don't know how to perform those maintenance, please read my other blog about How To Defrag Your Hard Disk for "defragmentation" and How to Perform Scan Disk For Your Hard Drive for "scan disk".

5. Regularly wipe off dusts and cobwebs in your CPU - this is another overheating measures. Exhaust fans are effective medium of venting out heated air, however if dusts and cobwebs have already clouded your CPU casing, your fans will become less effective. By simply using a clean paint brush or a blower, you can get rid of those heat-trapping dusts and cobwebs.

6. Leave at least 200 MB of hard drive space - Even if you have a decent RAM, there will come a point in time in which your processor will be needing an extra memory from your hard drive for processing purposes. So be kind to your hard disk, leave at least 200 MB worth of free space.