How reliable are HDD's?

[NezaH]

i was just wondering how reliable are hard drives and what precautions should i take for it not to crash or become corrupted. I'm looking into buying a Western Digital 750GB. I'm asking this question because my current 300GB harddrive i currently own ussauly crashes for me every year or 2 and i have to reformat.

 

[bc4]

doing a fresh install is usually a must if you a computer fanatic like most of us here. Many people partition the drive so they can keep there files and only re format/install the OS.

What type of crashes are you getting. Are you getting bad sectors? That may be a sign of a bad drive.

edit: if you are not constantly installing, uninstalling, downloading stuff. ie, you use it just for office work. Just do a monthly defrag and an occasional scan disk

 

[NezaH]

well i constantly install and download stuff , btw what is defraging? and is it bad to do it to much and how often should you defrag?

and im buying a OEM HD from newegg for my new build and going to be installing Windows XP is t hat a fresh install?

 

[bc4]

defrag is a program built into windows. It removes fragmentation from your drive. That way when the computer searches for a file --- the whole file is in one location.

Every time you install a program, it changes the registry files and after a while the registry files get cluttered. You can try to download a registry cleaner but the easiest way is to fresh install of windows when you feel the computer is slowing down.

Like I said, most people would take the drive and make it into 2 drives by partitioning it. Say you have a 250 gb C: drive, then you would partition it into a 50 gb C: drive for windows and program files and 200 gb drive for files. Then you can reinstall windows and programs on the C: drive

I hope some if this is making sense. I have the flu and my head is not on entirely straight Speaking of that, i'm off to sleep it off. Hope this helped

 

[NezaH]

this did help , now im wondering would it be a smart thing to partition my drive?

 

[ausch30]

I don't partition my drives but many people do. I think the biggest reason for partitioning is that when the hard drive is searching for files it has a smaller area to search and read which could improve it's speed as well as the reason that bc wrote.

I reinstall my OS about every 6 months, I download a lot of programs and such that even when uninstalled clutter still remains to slow my system.

For defragging open My Computer and right click the C: drive, choose properties then the Tools tab and you will see Error-Checking and Defragmentation. The Error-Checking option will start Scan Disk which will scan for bad sectors and move any data somewhere else one the drive as well as mark that area on the drive unusable and the Defrag will put the data together in a logical order to improve performance, both should be used weekly. As for cleaning the registry a good free option is Glary Utilities http://www.glaryutilities.com/

I have a Seagate 7200.7 120gb drive in my current system that is about 5 years old and still works fine. I still have a Seagate 3.2gb drive which is about 10 years old in my spare parts box and it still works fine. When taken care of a hard drive will last a long time.

 

[NezaH]

so your saying partitiong a drive will make it last a long time?

 

[imrul]

not quite, he is saying that error checking, defragging, and making sure theres always no errors trying to mess up the harddrive and taking good care of it will make it last a long time.

 

[pip_seeker]

partitioning a hard drive slows it down, not speed it up. It makes no sense to do this at all with hard drives very cheap, if you reinstall windows alot then just pick up seperate harddrive.

As far as hard drives failing, it's pretty rare but does happen. Premature failure can be related to poor quality of drive, handling before you got it or you bang it around / drop it etc, heat in the machine, or use.

If you keep heat in check, it should last a good long time. Get one with a 5yr warranty, that typically signifies quality... no company is going to warranty something for that long if they aren't sure whether it will last that long or not. This however doesn't mean you won't suffer a failure. but if you keep heat to a minimum / handle with care your chances are pretty good.

 

[Nik_I]

i have an old seagate hard drive from 1995 in one of my old pc's. only ~512MB and it still works!