Image Source: img.tomshardware.com

Hard Disk failure is one big factor in loss of important data stored inside your computer. We lose at an average, 44 percent, of our data stored due to our hard disk’s malfunction. It is important to know that hard drives are mechanical equipments or hardwares. It is prone to wear and tear. It has a specified life cycle. If you use them correctly and with its normal operating conditions, you can fully utilize it. But if you abuse its use, usage can further be shortened. Here are some reasons why hard disk failure occurs;

Head Crash accounts for the majority of the percentage if hard disk failure.
Sudden Temperature can influence directly the occurrence of data loss
Electro Static Discharge during installation can lead to electrical failure

Image Source: technabob.com

Solid state hard disks can now replace the rotating drives and parts that have comprised the hard disk market for the last decade. The latest technology in hard disk production is currently being used in a number of industrial and defense applications. Solid state provides the highest possible degree of performance and reliability. The moving parts of the ordinary IDE hard disks are virtually the weakest link of the entire medium because it is prone to tremendous strain and friction. The solid state hard disk is basically lightweight, it needs less power to run than the common 2.5″ and 3.5″ hard drives, and it has no acoustic signature. While the latest technology is enjoying great support from the market, it is not without its weak points too. The only major flaw that needs to be taken care of a solid state hard disk when used into the everyday stresses of computing, is its durability. Thats why, Adtron Hard Disks came up with their latest product release. The latest in solid state hard disk technology. It is capable of withstanding the strain of pressure. It offers exceptional write durability in I/O applications, it can sustain the best read and write rates without using up precious cache memory as a buffer of the host and media.

Your hard drive has a number of magnetized platters. The spindle spins the platters at a very fast speed while a read/write head scans over them both looking for reading and writing information. The effectiveness of your hard drive depends on how much of its capacity remains unused, fragmentation and its data transfer rate, which in turn is dependent on its connection type and the drive’s spin rate. In buying a hard drive, you may want to compare the prices of say a 160GB drive against two 80 GB drives. The thing with 2 hard drives is that, If one drive fails all is not lost. Although today’s hard disks are durable pieces of hardware, so long as you do not abuse them, it can provide you a long time of hassle free data storage.

If the user is smart enough to go through the Storage Bits it is safe to them to play along with the Secure Erase program safe. In this program, secure erase, it overwrites ivery single block on the hard drive. Even those data on the bad blocks are being overwritten. The information left at the end is partly overwritten directories and blocks. Remember there is no data recovery from Secure Erase!

The National Security Agency together with the National Institue for Standards and Testing gave the Secure Erase, complying with legal requirements, a higher Security rating than external block overwrite software that is available anywhere in the market.

The capacity of early hard disks is quoted as megabytes. A megabyte can store up to 1,048,576 or 2²⁰ bytes. Today, hard disks are commonly in gigabytes. Gigabytes is equal to 1,073,741,824 or 2³⁰ bytes of computer storage. Byte, on the other hand is equal to eight bits. A bit is a binary digit, taking up the values of either 1 or 0.

Have you ever thought of bringing a portable video player on the road? Of course, you may think I might be talking about portable DVDs, but no. If you have a wide collection of movies at home, will you bring your CDs with you to your destination? Of course not! That would be too much of a hassle.

To the movie buffs, here’s a treat for you. Chinavasion is again trying to catch up with the big names in the hard drive industry as they have come up with a portable external hard drive that can be used a media player. The player has a 120GB capacity and a 2.5 inches wide screen for viewing. It also has an earphone jack, so you can basically bring it everywhere you go—even in places that value silence.

Photo taken from http://chinavasion.manufacturer.globalsources.com

How about getting some of those docks made by Unitek? They are currently selling in the market a dock wherein a lot of computer gadgets can be connected. Aside from the 4 card reader slots and the 2 USB ports available, you can even insert an external hard drive in it.

Photo taken from http://usb.brando.com.hk

Sentry(R)Safe cared so much about protecting your precious files that they made a gadget that is both water and fire proof. The hard drive has a 160GB capacity and was given a lot of awards by some of the most known companies and critics in the world of technology.

Photo taken from http://www.firewebdesigns.com

Those who are in the media industry should definitely invest on hard drives since they store their creations in them. Hard drives with large capacities are also needed to store full length movie masterpieces or numerous video clips for later viewing or editing. Sonnet has hit the hearts of the media gurus, manufacturing a high quality, high capacity piece of gadget: their Fusion F2 portable RAID solution. It is light weight, weighing only about 1.22 pounds, and since the hard drive has a RAID capable, you won’t be needing a drive C, D, E, or F on your computer anymore; the Fusion F2 can pretty much store as much data as you can imagine.

Photo taken from http://www.pclaunches.com