The Critical Importance of Caring for Your Laptop Hard Drive
We often take our computers for granted. When they work we don’t give the matter a second thought. But if they stop working for any reason and we end up losing data and important files we have a rather rude awakening of the importance of keeping data safe. The first and most obvious step is to take care of your laptop hard drive. These are actually pretty sophisticated pieces of precision equipment. They may not look like much, but their inner workings are really finely tuned and delicate. Some disks spin at speeds of 10,000 revolutions per minute or even more. That generates huge internal forces and centrifugal force that can cause real damage if it is not contained. The head that reads a disk also floats just above its surface on a really tiny cushion of air. And because data is packed in so tightly we really are talking about microscopic engineering here.
Now imagine if you were to drop a laptop with a spinning drive onto the floor. That could cause the head to come crashing down onto the fast-spinning disk. Think of old fashioned vinyl records and the damage that can be done to them if a needle is dragged across the surface, and you get the picture of what is happening to your laptop’s drive. So the first thing you should do is shut down your hard drive before you move your computer. Most have a park facility to protect the drive from the head and many will also have additional protection and shock absorbing capabilities built in. Even so, just by closing the screen and parking the drive you vastly reduce the risk of causing huge damage. Also use a padded laptop bag to protect your computer from vibration and minor falls.
The other thing you should do is try to keep it away from dust. Most will have some level of protection but ultimately laptops generate heat and thus need a good flow of air to cool them. If you operate in a very dusty environment then you run the risk of getting dust and dirt into the inner parts of your laptop. That can spell a quick death. Even cigarette smoke in a disk drive can cause it damage. So try to work in a clean environment.
The last thing is to back up regularly. It may seem a real pain to have to keep doing it, but it is not a question of if you will lose data one day, it is a question of when.
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