launcheHitachi announced new 160HB Travelstar 5K160 Mobile Hard Drives

Hitachi has launched a new mobile hard drives based on perpendicular recording technolog. Company has today announced its new 2.5″, 5400RPM Travelstar 5K160 series hard drives.



hitachi-5K160The drive uses perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) tech and is aimed at the notebook market, but it will be used in next generation 1.8-inch drives, ready in the second half of this year.
Capacities of  the new Travelstar drives: 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, 120GB and 160GB. The drives feature a 11ms seek time, 8MB of cache and are available with either an IDE or SATA interface.

The perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) term refers to the fact that the drives can store data vertically on their media rather than on a horizontal flat plane, which increases the amount of storage.


Hitachi in its press release claimed extra robustness and reliability of their new mobile Travelstar 5K160 hard drives which they claim is made with an alloy combination and layer-deposition process to resist corrosion, a new PMR write head to reduce error rates and write data bits with greater fidelity, and an iridium-manganese-chromium (IrMnCr) alloy read-head to offer twice the field reliability of competing drives.

“What we’ve achieved with the Travelstar 5K160 is a credit to our technical teams’ methodical, single-minded approach to excellence, which we adopted from the start of the PMR development process,” said Hiroaki Nakanishi, CEO, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “Our mission was to deliver PMR technology when it’s of the highest value to our customers, which is when the transition from longitudinal recording would be seamless in all regards, including reliability, performance, volume ramp and cost. By all measures, that time is now.”

Hitachi’s upcoming 1.8-inch drive will also spin the drive at 3,600 RPM rather than 4,200 RPM, using the improvements in performance from the areal density to offset the slower spindle speed.

The TravelStar 5K160 family will range in capacity from 40 to 160 Gbytes and it goes for sale in the U.S. this summer for $270 to OEMs and $300 to consumers with three-year warranty, which is standard of Hetachi. The company also has plans for a still slimmer hard drive measuring 1.8-inch in thickness for consumer electronics for small notebooks utilizing the same technology by latter half of 2006.

ST1.3 - One Inch Photo Seagate Hard Drives

Seagate Technology last week announced the Seagate ST1.3 Series 12GB 1-inch photo hard drive especially targeted to pocket music player and digital photo storage market segments.
With a footprint 23% smaller, 50% extra storage capacity, and 30% less power consumption than Seagate’s current 1-inch photo hard drive - the latest Seagate ST1.3 Series offers a new optional drop sensor for increased robustness, delivering the features most requested by handheld device manufacturers.


The ST1.3 Series hard drive is Seagate’s second hard drive with perpendicular recording and the company’s first drive utilizing perpendicular technology in the 1-inch category.


As part of its G-Force Protection feature set enabling skip-free, reliable media storage and playback, Seagate also includes an optional drop sensor. This will increase operational shock resistance 33% up to 2000Gs, enabling the drive to survive a 1.5-meter drop onto hard concrete or ceramic surfaces when properly mounted in a handheld device.

By offering massive 12GB of storage in such a smaller footprint, the ST1.3 Series hard drive is a powerful solution for increasingly sophisticated media devices such as digital audio players, portable media players, and mobile phones.

According to IDC, the worldwide mobile phone market is expected to grow 7% in 2006 to 857.9 million units. IDC forecasts that the worldwide converged mobile device market will reach 181 million units by the end of 20091 and worldwide portable multimedia player shipments are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 95% between 2005-2009.

The ST1.3 Series hard drive also delivers 30% greater power efficiency than previous models, enabling system designers and manufacturers greater choice in power supplies and system power-on hours.

New Seagate 750GB Hard Drive, The Barracuda 7200.10

Desktop and workstation hard drive capacity takes another giant stride, as Seagate has announced its brand new 750 GB hard disk drive. Called the Barracuda 7200.10, with its 750 GB capacity, the sleak unit represents one of the largest disk drive capacity ever from previous record of 500 GB.
PC World took it for a spin recently and says "it leads the 7200-rpm pack in overall performance". Those of you who don’t do video or host servers, what the heck you going to load this thing up with?

Seagate's new Barracuda 7200.10 is a Serial ATA drive and comes with either 8MB or 16MB on-board cache. As is the case with all of Seagate's hard disk drives, the 7200.10 monster too comes with a 5-year limited warranty. Suggested retail price is widely believed to be US$559 and the drives are already shippping across to distributors.

Having first launched the new hard disk drive for PC market, Seagate plans to introduce a custom versions for other consumer electronics, such as digital video recorders that are growing in popularity as standalone set-top-boxes or part of cable and satellite television receivers.

The big capacity leap stems from "perpendicular recording" technology that allows drive makers like Seagate and its rivals boost the density of a disk by aligning bits of data vertically rather than conventional horizontally on a circular platter. This enables much higher transfer speeds without increasing the speed of the drive’s spindle. At the same time, fewer moving components are needed in the drives making the access much faster in addition to substantially enhancing durability.

Analysts say a 750-gigabyte drive could hold roughly 375 hours of standard-definition television programming, about 75 hours of high-definition video, or more than 10,000 music CDs converted to the MP3 digital audio format.

Flash, Minidrive, Or Hard Drive: Which Mp3 Player Is Right For You?

By: Andrea Morris -

If you’re ready to ditch the Walkman and go high-tech with your portable music needs, you’re probably in the market for an MP3 player. For the non-gadget geeks among us, selecting a digital music player involves navigating some choppy waters. It’s easy to get bowled over by the waves of new technology—shuffles, nanos…where do you start?

As with any purchase, you can start by assessing your needs. There are three major types of MP3 players: flash, microdrive, and hard drive. Each has its pros and cons, many of which are dependent upon how you plan to use your MP3 player.

First, think about the size of your music collection. Do you have a modest sized collection of just your all-time faves or are you the live-for-music type who’s first in line when a new CD comes out? At most, a flash MP3 player will hold the equivalent of approximately 20 CDs. This size could be just right for people who plan to use their MP3 players mainly for their daily workouts.

The microdrive is the middle ground. They hold anywhere from 50 to 120 CDs. For the majority of us, a microdrive is big enough to hold most every song we want. If not, then you want the hard drive MP3 player. These puppies will hold your entire collection—as many as 1200 CDs.

The size and weight of each type of MP3 player corresponds with the amount of music it can hold. A hard drive is going to be bigger and heavier than a flash player. Price works the same way. You’ll pay more for a player that holds more. You can get a flash MP3 player for less than $150, a minidrive for $150-250, and a hard drive for $250 and up.

Next, think about where you’ll be taking your MP3 player. For example, if you want something you can listen to at the gym, a flash player might be the right choice because it tends to be lighter. A hard drive player would be bulky and heavy, at least in relation to a workout.

The flash is also a good choice for someone who wants something to listen to for short periods of time, such as during a commute. If you’ll be listening to your MP3 player for hours on end, you’ll want something that holds more music. It won’t take long to go through the 20 CDs worth of songs on a flash. A minidrive is a good compromise. It’s relatively small and light, but still holds enough music to prevent your favorite song from becoming your least favorite song because you’ve listened to it 30 times.

We’ve said that the hard drive MP3 player is bigger and heavier than the other two kinds. That’s only relatively speaking, of course. It’s hardly like lugging around a concrete block. If you want all your music with you all the time, a hard drive is the way to go. For instance, this type of player is good for someone who goes on long trips without access to their collection for switching out songs.

If you’re ready to ditch the Walkman and go high-tech with your portable music needs, you’re probably in the market for an MP3 player. For the non-gadget geeks among us, selecting a digital music player involves navigating some choppy waters. It’s easy to get bowled over by the waves of new technology—shuffles, nanos…where do you start?

As with any purchase, you can start by assessing your needs. There are three major types of MP3 players: flash, microdrive, and hard drive...

Andrea Morris is a staff writer for DiscountOnline. The latest electronics discounts are at DiscountsOnline Electronics .
http://www.articledashboard.com

Gig'Em - How to Decide Which Hard Drive Is Right For You

By Chris Landolfi

Deciding on the appropriate hard drive is a personal decision made according to an individual's computing needs. These days, 40 gigabyte, 80 gig, 100 gig and even larger are common. When pricing hard drives, it is common to see very little price differences between smaller size drives and larger. For instance, the price difference between a 40 gig and a 80 gig may be only twenty dollars. An old rule of thumb among the computing community has always been to buy the largest hard drive that you could possibly afford since everyone loads and uses more software than they initially imagine they will, and since that will put off the need to upgrade the computer the following year. However, if your budget is limited remember that a 40 or 80 gig hard drive is plenty for the average user.

These hard drive sizes would astound a computer user from the 1980's or early 1990's. Back then hard drives were sized in megabytes, not gigabytes. The original IBM PC commonly had a ten Meg or twenty Meg drive, and when the thirty Meg drive came out it was considered absolutely gigantic. However, that was a time of smaller programs, less software and before Windows dominated the home computer world.

When choosing a hard drive you should always remember that the type we are most familiar with is called Parallel ATA type. A new type, serial ATA, is gaining popularity. This type is much faster (as much as twenty percent) and has other benefits including improved airflow. Your hard drive will need flowing air because it is constantly rotating at extremely high speeds and generates heat. The airflow helps the hard drive stay cool and run properly.

Most of the name brand hard drives are fine quality and it is hard to go wrong if they are purchased from an authorized reseller. If you buy your hard drive from an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) or from a discount store be sure to check out the warranty.

When choosing a new hard drive, keep several things in mind: size measured in gigabytes, size physically measured in inches, speed, and brand.

When looking at brands, there are many good choices. Choose a brand you've heard of and trust. Possibilities from good companies include Maxtor, Quantum, Western Digital, Fijutsu, Toshiba, and IBM among others.

When looking at price, remember the old adage "you get what you pay for." A wise shopper will look around for the best price, but price isn't the only thing here. A low price without a warranty, or from a dealer you don't trust, could just cost you more in the long run. Fortunately with hard drives the manufacturer provides warranties on new drives, but a company willing to back up their product and replace a defective drive out of inventory can save you lots of hassle and downtime.

Size of drive in gigs, as said before, will have little price difference in certain increments and are usually very small. Figure out what each gig is costing you on each drive. Take a calculator into the store and do the math, then make your choice. Size physically is important because you must have a hard drive that fits the slot in your particular computer. Hard drives come in two primary sizes. The smaller, standard size is the size of a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive. The larger type is the size of a CD ROM drive. Larger drives tend to cost less, but most computers have enough slots for smaller, standard drives and most computer users consider them a little more preferable.

Speed is used to describe the revolution speed of the spinning hard drive. The faster the better of course, but check out the price difference when going from a relatively slow hard drive to a faster drive and see if the price difference is really worth it. After all, the hard drive is really spending most of its time waiting for you to type in data.

In summary, choosing a hard drive is as individual as choosing a car, but most people want as much size and speed as they can afford. Ask your friends, check online message boards, and perhaps members of a local computer users group to see what other people's experiences have been, analyze all of your options and then make a wise decision.

http://www.free-articles-zone.com

Hard Drives- Choosing the Right One

By Joe Uantu

Hard drives come in many different sizes and configurations. How much data a hard drive can hold is measured in gigabytes (GB). The latest hard drives can hold anywhere from 80 GB to 1000 GB (1 TB)! When buying a hard drive, size isn't the only factor to look at, however.

For business or basic home use, an 80 GB hard drive should suffice. If you plan on downloading music, movies, or installing a lot of games on your computer, your hard drive should be at least 160 GB. For laptop users, the same space requirements apply, however, many laptops come with small hard drives. Many laptop users choose to keep the small hard drive and buy an external hard drive for excess files to keep costs down.

You can have a huge hard drive, but it will be worthless if it doesn't move data fast enough for your computer! To find data, hard drives have platters on spindles that spin, similar to a CD. How fast a hard drive spins is measured in RPM (revolutions per minute). The higher a hard drive's RPM is, the faster it will perform. Desktop hard drives almost always have 7200 RPM hard drives. Laptop hard drives can range from 4200 RPM to 5400 RPM for budget and midrange uses and 7200 RPM for high end use. Hard drives with RPMs of 10,000 or more are available, but those are mainly for gamers, computer enthusiasts, and servers.

A hard drive's cache is also another important performance indicator. A hard drive's cache will hold frequently accessed data for faster access by the computer. A good hard drive will have at least 8 MB of cache. As with RPM, the more cache a hard drive has, the better.

Hard drives generally have either an SATA or IDE connection. Both connections are for attaching the hard drive to the motherboard via a cable so that data can be sent and received to and from the computer and drive. SATA is the newest connection and is better than IDE in that it can be faster and uses a much smaller cable. IDE, however, is just as fast as IDE in real world performance testa and hard drives that use IDE are cheaper than SATA hard drives. However, IDE hard drives use large cables that can restrict airflow. Fortunately, you can buy a rounded IDE cable that is not as big for $5-$10 at almost any computer supply store or online computer part retailer, such as Newegg.com or Fry's Electronics.

If you are computer user looking for performance, you should know about RAID. RAID lets you put 2 or more hard drives of the same brand and model together and run them at once, which results in faster performance. You can also use RAID so the second hard drives automatically backs up data from the first hard drive, so you always have a backup of your data. There are numerous possible RAID configurations out there, too many to mention in this article.

Strategies for Maximizing the Life of Your Hard Drive Maximizing the life of your hard drive

If I asked you the question: which part of your computer is the most fragile, what would you say? What if I asked: which part is most important to you?

Often, the answer to both of these questions is your Hard Drive.


Your hard drive is likely one the most important things you own. It contains work data, school data, emails, photos, music, movies, tax information, etc… Incidentally, the hard drive is also one of only two moving components in your computer (the other being your optical drive). The following is a list of important maintenance and monitoring techniques you can use to maximize the life of your hard drive and prevent data loss.





Hard drives are physically fragile – handle with care

Statistics show that 25% of lost data is due to a failure of a portable drive. (Source: 2001 Cost of Downtime Survey Results)

Contrary to its seemingly rugged appearance, your hard disk is a very delicate device that writes and reads data using microscopic magnetic particles. Any vibration, shock, and other careless operation may damage your drive and cause or contribute to the possibility of a failure. This is especially relevant for notebook users, as they are most at risk of drive failure due to physical damage, theft, and other causes beyond their control. That’s why we recommend regular backup of notebook hard drives, as often as possible.

Possible solutions include external USB or Firewire drives (although these are prone to the same risks), desktop synchronization, or backup at a data center through the web.





Hard drives write data in a non-linear way forcing it to become fragmented.



When files accumulate on your hard drive, they do not just get written in a linear fashion. A hard drive writes files in small pieces and scatters them over the surface. The fuller your hard drive becomes and the more files you save and delete the worse file fragmentation can be. Hard drive access times increase with fragmentation since your drive must work harder to find all the pieces of the files. The more fragmented your data is, the harder the actuator arm has to work to find each piece of a file.


A case in point: Disk fragmentation is a common problem for users of Outlook Express and database software. Each time outlook saves new mail, it does so in a different physical location from the previous time. This results in extreme fragmentation, causing longer hard drive access times and forcing more strain on the heads. This strain can eventually lead to a head crash, and often that means a virtually unrecoverable drive.Finally, in the event of a total crash, a fragmented drive is much more difficult to recover then a healthy defragged drive.


Luckily, Windows makes it remarkably easy to defrag your hard drive, simply launch the Disk Defragmenter utility (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools), choose which disk or partition you’d like to defragment and set it to work overnight or while you are not actively using your computer. Defragmentation will speed up your computer and ensure a longer life for your hard drive.





A very small power surge can fry a hard drive – use a UPS and turn off your computer when you can


Another little-known fact about the fragility of your hard drive is its susceptibility to electrical failure. An electrical failure can be caused by a power surge, lightening strikes, power brown-outs, incorrect wiring, a faulty or old power supply, and many other factors. If a power surge enters your computer, it may do an unpredictable amount of damage, including destroying your hard drive’s electronics or crashing the heads and possibly resulting in total data loss.

The best way to protect your computer from such dangers is to use a highly rated protected power bar or an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). Although these devices won’t eliminate the chances of a crash, they will serve as effective protection in most cases. Also, you can minimize the danger of an electrical problem and reduce wear of your hard drive by turning off your computer or using power-save modes whenever possible. It’s a known fact that 100% of drives fail, the question is when will it happen and will you be prepared? Make sure to check out the knowledgebase section of our website for more detailed information on how electrical power affects your computer.





Be SMART, monitor the health of your drive to prevent unexpected crashes


All modern hard drives have a self-monitoring technology called SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology). What most people don’t realize is that the majority of hard drive failures do not have to be unexpected. Most failures occur as a result of long-term problems which can be predicted. By regularly monitoring disk health and performance, you can know about potential hard drive problems before you lose any of your data.


Several excellent utilities are available, including DiskView and Stellar SMART for standard IDE and SATA desktop drives. Also available are tools that monitor the health of SCSI drives and full RAID Array systems. Ariolic Software offers a great utility called ActiveSMART.





The only fool-proof way to prevent data loss is... Backup!


If you only take one of the suggestions here to heart, let it be this one: always back up your important data. After all the monitoring and all the prevention measures are in place, one fact still remains: all hard drives fail. Backing up regularly will ensure that you’re never caught without your critical data. For individuals, the simplest solutions include external portable hard drives, dvd’s, and online storage. For businesses, we recommend renting space at a secure data centre and implementing a disaster recovery plan, regardless of the size of your business.


I hope that the above techniques give you some idea of the importance of hard drive maintenance and provide some insights in how you can protect yourself from data loss.

Author: Alex Bezborodov is the technical writer for Accurate Data Recovery, specializing in data recovery solutions and research. Let ADR bring your data back to life!

Source: www.articledepot.co.uk

What Happens On Hard Drive When You Click "save"?

while using computer ,Pretend you are writing a letter in Microsoft Word. Here's a very simplified version of what happens when you click the "Save" command.

1. Microsoft Word tells the operating system (such as Windows '98) to store your letter in the hard drive.

2. Your letter, which is currently hanging out in the computer's main memory (located on the motherboard), hops on the hard drive interface, and rides it to the hard drive's cache buffer.

3. Upon arriving in the cache buffer, your letter is met by the hard disk controller.

4. The hard disk controller receives a communication from the operating system: "Controller, please store the document at this address: ****."

5. The read/write heads move into position over the correct track and wait for the correct sector to pass under. As soon as it does, the elected head starts writing the letter onto the elected platter.

But what if the document is really huge and can't fit onto one sector? If the next sectors on the track are empty, the drive will continue writing the document there. If the track fills up and there is still more writing to be done, however, the drive's first choice will be to switch heads. Since the heads all move in unison, all the other heads are positioned over the same track on their respective platter surfaces. It is faster to use an alternate head than to reposition the heads over a new track. A sequential group of tracks is referred to as a cylinder, because they are one on top of another, not side by side.

This brings up another interesting point. After you've owned a hard drive for a while, the availability of long sequential platter space grows scarce. Things start getting messy as you throw files away and add new ones. When this happens your hard drive is said to be fragmented. As a hard drive becomes more and more fragmented it loses efficiency because it is forced to spend more time repositioning its read/write heads. However, you can do what's called defragmenting your hard drive. You just need a defragmenting program, which isn't expensive. The program will reorganize the data on your hard drive for optimum efficiency.

By: sanjay garg

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

When And How To Delete A Hard Drive

Most of the time, of course, computer users are focused on protecting the information held on their hard drives, and keeping it from coming to harm. There are times, however, when the focus shifts to deleting the hard drive, to keep the data from falling into the wrong hands, when the computer is being sold or given away, or even for legal reasons.

One of the most frequent reasons for deleting the data on a hard drive is when the computer is to be transferred to a new owner. With computer technology changing so rapidly and even the newest computers becoming obsolete so quickly, there is a thriving market for used computers, and it is important for the current owner of the computer to take the steps necessary to protect the personal information on the computer from being used for nefarious purposes.

These days so many of us do our taxes online, and while this electronic option provides many conveniences, it also introduces a number of risks, including the risk of identity theft. Financial information can lurk virtually anywhere on such a computer, from spreadsheets and tax preparation programs to saved emails and other types of documents. If the computer has been used for any sensitive purposes, such as online investment or tax preparation, it is important to delete the hard drive properly before giving or selling it to its new owner. Even if you are certain the new owner would never use the computer for bad purposes, you can never be sure where your old computer will eventually end up.

When we talk about deleting a hard drive, we are not talking simply about deleting the file and emptying the recycle bin. While this may seem sufficient, in reality a skillful computer user can instantly recover these files, and there are many software programs on the market to do just that. When you delete a hard drive, it is important to use some sort of disk wiping software to make sure that the information is truly gone. If you do not take this extra step, the information on your old computer could eventually come back to haunt you.

These days computers contain so much vital information that it is more important than ever before to protect that information from harm, both when the computer is in your possession and when it is time for it to move on to a new owner. When using your computer it is important to use virus protection, anti-spyware programs and other techniques to keep prying eyes off of your computer. When it is time to sell or give away the old computer, it is important to properly delete the hard drive to make sure the information it contains does not fall into the wrong hands.

By: Cedric Dirose

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Tips For Finding The Best External Hard Drive Reviews

When it comes to finding the best external hard drive reviews, there are plenty of places to start the search. There are many reviews out there, covering virtually every model of external hard drive on the market, and if you look around enough chances are you will find plenty of information.

One of the best places to start the search for the best external hard drive reviews is also one of the most original. The many computer magazines on the newsstand, including Computer Shopper, Computer World and others, are great sources of reviews on virtually every kind of computer equipment, including hard drives, DVD drives, printers and much more. Even in this world of the internet, these paper publications are great sources of information.

Of course that does not mean that the internet is not important, and in fact there are many great external hard drive reviews on the internet as well. These reviews of external hard drives and other equipment run the gamut, from personal opinions posted on personal web sites and blogs, to professionally written reviews prepared especially for online publications.

When reading these external hard drive reviews, it is important to be on the lookout for any possible bias or vested interest on the part of the reviewer. If for instance the web site is selling a particular brand of external hard drive, or linking to an affiliate who sells that brand, there may be a possible conflict of interest to be aware of.

There are of course many sources of information on all kinds of internal hard drives, external hard drives and other computer information. Some of this information will be personal in nature, gathered by talking with friends, family members and coworkers. This kind of first hand experience with computer equipment can be quite valuable, and it is important to seek it out.

For more objective measures of quality, there are plenty of external hard drive reviews out there waiting to be found. When researching a particular brand or model of hard drive it is a good idea to look at several reviews. Doing so will give you the most complete and most objective look at the various external hard drives on the market today.

By: Cedric Dirose

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

De-fragmenting your Hard Drive for Greater Performance

Author: sezer bozkurt

De-fragmenting your hard drive is an often neglected part of computer maintenance. If you ask most people how to de-fragment a hard drive they won’t know what you’re talking about.


De-fragmenting your hard drive is very important if you want your computer performance not to suffer as you add more and more data to your hard drive. Windows has a handy feature that easy let’s you evaluate your hard drive as to whether it needs to be de-fragmented or not, and de-fragment your hard drive as needed.

Although the interface between different versions of windows changes they all have the same basic premise. You simply need to go to the start menu, accessories, system tools then disk defragmenter. Once in the interface you can choose to analyze the hard drives connected to your computer. The analysis will tell you whether you need to de-fragment your hard drives or not. If you do you simply need to select the hard drive from the list and hit de-fragment.

Disk de-fragmenting does one important task. It moves all the files that are scattered across your hard drive to one chunk of the hard drive making it easier to read and write from, therefore increasing the performance of your computer. Over time most computers scatter data across the whole length of the hard drive making accessing this data more time consuming.

Depending on the size of the hard drive your de-fragmenting this usually takes a long time. As a simple guide an 80gb hard drive will take about an hour. This also depends on the speed of your processor and the amount of RAM you have. De-fragmenting your hard drive will take up nearly all of the resources of your computer so you won’t be able to perform any operations while it is running.

The solution to this would be to run the de-fragmentation at a time when you are not using the computer.

Techniques To Properly Clean A Hard Drive

Knowing when, and how, to clean a hard drive is important for every computer owner. It is important for every owner of a computer to know when it is appropriate to wipe the data off the hard drive and start again from scratch. While the computer hardware and software on the market today is generally of high quality and very reliable, both hardware and software do fail, and when this happens it may be necessary to remove the data from the hard drive, replace the hard drive or otherwise repair the system.

One appropriate time to clean a hard drive is after a failure has occurred. If the hard drive on your computer has failed and been replaced with a new one, it may still be a good idea to clean the failed hard drive. It may seem unnecessary to remove data from a failed hard drive, but the fact is that there are many people who will be able to recover data from the drive, and if you simply put it out with the garbage there is no telling where it may end up.

Many communities have recycling programs in place for computer equipment, and if your neighborhood has such a program you may want to dispose of the failed hard drive that way. If no such program exists, you can try magnetizing the hard drive by passing a powerful magnet over it, using a special wiping software to overwrite the data with useless information or even destroying the hard drive with a hammer.

It is also important to clean a hard drive thoroughly if it is to be sold or given away. When you consider that many of us use our personal computers for such sensitive things as banking, shopping and investing, it is easy to see how a computer in the wrong hands could easily put you and your identity at risk. Even if you have total trust in the new owner of the computer, you have no way of knowing where that PC and the information it contains will eventually end up.

That is why it is so important to clean the hard drive carefully and completely. It is not enough to simply delete the files and empty the recycle bin, as the files are still out there on the computer and will be quite easy to recover for those with the skills to do so. It is important to clean the hard drive by using a quality wiping program. There are many such programs on the market, including software products by Symantec, McAfee, Computer Associates and other large manufacturers, as well as some excellent programs written by independent programmers. These cleaning programs not only erase the data; they also overwrite it with useless information, making it virtually impossible for those with malicious intent to gain access to your personal information.

By: Cedric Dirose

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Let your hard drive cool.

Author: Vitali Priadkine


There are many reasons for the hard drive failures. Of course, when you lose your data, you think less about the causes of its loss, but more about the data, itself.


No matter what we do with our computer, storage is an important part of our system. Nowadays, we have been holding more and more information on our PC. Most computer users no longer keep their documents, letters, music, photos, pictures, etc. in hard copies, but store them on different data storage devices, preferentially the most popular one – the hard drive, counting on it’s reliability.
There are many reasons for the hard drive failures. Of course, when you lose your data, you think less about the causes of its loss, but more about the data, itself. However, if you were to learn about the cost of the hard drive data recovery, you would rather prevent it, especially, from the most common reason of hard drive damage – overheating.
In old drives, the rotating speed was low, so the overheating problem did not exist. However, most recent hard disks, with a speed of 7200-10000 RPM, heat up during their work, and the temperature inside rises up to 70 C and above. Of course, hard drives are now manufactured with internal temperature sensors, computers have fans, coolers, and other gadgets to prevent overheating, and software utilities indicate the temperature of your hard drive. Contemporary hard drive models are able to operate at 50-55 C, but we should point out that the hard drives are more sensitive to high temperatures than any other computer parts. The fact that the hard drives carry your precious data is indeed important, as well as its ultimate loss would be a disaster to you. There are data loss situations when even the most advanced data recovery companies can’t guarantee that you will receive you data back.
Why is overheating critical for a hard drive? The best way to understand how a hard disk works is to take a look inside the drive to see the internal work of each part in relation to overheating.
The Platters (magnetic physical media).
The platters (disks) carry the data. They are made from light aluminum or optical glass and ceramic, and are coated with a magnetic layer. When the drive heats up, the platters expand, changing their size and geometry. This destroys the magnetic layer on the surface where the data is stored, and creates defects and micro cracks.

Physical damage of the surface leads to the appearance of “bad” or unreadable sectors.
The Read/Write Heads.
The read/write heads of the hard disk are the interface between the platters on which the data is stored and the electronic components that make up the rest of the hard disk. The heads read from and write data on the platters. The read/write heads do not make contact with the media. This distinguishes hard disk drives from floppy disks, VCRs and tapes. Drive heads float over the surface of the disk without ever physically touching the platters. When the air inside heats up, the distance from the platters to the heads gets smaller, which increases the possibility of a head crash.
The Head Actuator.
The head actuator is a device attached to the heads, and is responsible for their moving around the platters. All modern drives have a voice coil actuator, which controls the position of the head over the correct cylinder. Since overheating is a cause of damage of any parts of the drive, the actuator is not an exception. Therefore, the head actuator failure directly affects the hard drive performance.
Controller Chip.
The circuit board(s) attached to the outside of the HDA (Head Drive Assembly) provides control of the movement of internal parts. Modern models have SM and VCM (Spindle Motor and Voice Coil Motor) controller chip soldered into the board. It is obvious that even a small temperature jump, for example, in the summer time, can lead to the burning of SM and VCM controller chip. Taking into account the importance of your data, you can imagine how unpleasant would be the consequences of such.
We explored the problems that can occur from an overheating hard drive.

What is the optimum temperature that will prolong the drive life (and that of your data!) and how to maintain this temperature?

Most used 7200 RPM hard drives generate more heat than 5400 RPM drives. Ideally, a hard drive should run under 40 C. If it runs under 50 C it is probably still acceptable. If it keeps working at 60C you will have a problem and if it still keeps working at 70 C you will have a REAL PROBLEM.

As we can see, the excessive heat is not tolerated by a hard drive.
What can we do to maximize the hard drive’s life?
It is essential that the drive must be properly cooled and ventilated.

Even if your system has embedded coolers and fans, additional coolers installed in a way of cooling the hard drive directly, will improve the drive’s reliability. Just invest a small amount ($5-$35) in a cooling solution for your hard drive, and you will prevent the computer data recovery issue. There is a bunch of coolers that you can find at the computer stores.
By keeping your drive cool, you do not only increase the hard drive’s stability, but also eliminate drive’s crashes.

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