Movement: It ought to be remembered that hard drives are fragile storage devices. Slight movement may cause scratches, jars or even pushes ruining the drive's ability to save. Thus, to ensure faultless working of the drive including an extended life span, proper location and care become important. Usually, drives, whether inputted in the computer or archived in a storage library, ought to be kept stationary. In other words, there should be minimal movement of any kind. Movement causes the alignment of the drive to become fragmented.

Maintenance: Adequate maintenance by a user ensures a long life for a hard drive. Maintenance guidelines cover many areas.

Temperature: Hard drives do come with inbuilt fans and cooling systems, but it is wise to take precautions. Modern computers process data at high speeds raising the temperature in the hard drive to more than 70 degrees F. High temperatures succeed in melting the magnetic drive layers and, consequently, shifting the micro-electrical components of the drive. This could cause a hard drive to fail. Therefore, it becomes imperative to keep the drive or computer in a cool environment. It should be protected from extreme heat and light. In addition, overexposure to humidity may also tamper with the storage capacity of the drive. Always keep the drive in a dry environment away from any beverage and water. Further, it is essential not to use the drive as a mat or small pad. Keep it away from pets as pets might urinate on it or chew it. Always provide additional ventilation to your computer by setting it under the fan before prolonged usage. This additional ventilation allows hard drives to cool off ? constant spinning and overdrive could lead the interior of the hard drive to lose its magnetic attraction.

Personal Handling: Hard drives are delicate devices and ought to be handled with care. Avoid holidaying with your hard drive or throwing it around. This could cause cracks and lead to drive damage.

S.M.A.R.T. Hardware Monitoring

S.M.A.R.T. i.e., Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology protects hard drives from crashes and guarantees long life span for hard disks for more than seven years. S.M.A.R.T. has the ability to analyse the health state of a hard disk warning the user of any potential malfunctions. It allows the user to run a series of self-evaluation tests on the hard drive i.e., its interface, the surface and the mechanics including every magnetic read head. S.M.A.R.T. technology has been upgraded to form the O&O DriveLED hard drive protection system. The O&O DriveLED system performs all the protection services of S.M.A.R.T. including error log checking.

Features:

But there is no need to panic if your hard drive does crash. It is important to check your recycle bin and restore lost data files. One can also download data recovery softwares from the Internet. And, finally, it is imperative to back up data.