Many people do not know that your hard drive is usually the first part to go bad on your computer.  This happens because your hard drive is the only moving part in your computer and is more apt to wear out than your other parts.

How do hard drives work?

In a nutshell, the hard drive has platters which are spinning all of the time and when data is needed an arm that holds the read/write heads runs over the spot with the needed data and reads it. The arm can move up to 50 times per second. Again that is a very limited description of what goes on, but you get the picture that stuff is moving all of the time.

What are the signs that your hard drive is going bad?

1. The easiest way to tell that your hard drive is going bad is to listen to it. If wired clicking or screeching sounds are coming from your computer, you should try to get your data off immediately.
2. Hard drive have a technology built into them called SMART that can notify you if your hard drive is going bad. Usually you will see these when your computer is booting up and they will say something like “Pri master hard disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status Bad, backup and replace”. If you see this error than you should start moving your data ASAP.
3. You hear the hard drive grinding alot more than it used to. You become used to the sound of your hard drive if you use your computer for any length of time during the day. If you notice that your hard drive is grinding longer and louder than it used to. You might want to look into replacing it.

What if its too late?

The fact is that if it is too late, then you are going to have to pay upwards of $1000 to get your data back. So you should look into methods of backing up now before it is a problem. You can find an earlier post on backup solutions here.

I had the privilege of helping a customer with their Dell laptop and after some investigation I found that the hard drive was bad and it needed to be replaced.  As it stood it was not a big deal, the hard drive was covered under Dell warranty so the new hard drive was free.

But what of the data?

The pictures and documents are now held hostage on this hard drive that is physically bad. This data is unrecoverable and the service to get data off of a broken hard drive can cost thousands.

You might wonder how to protect yourself from this fate and I can give you a definitive answer.

First and foremost you need an external hard drive that comes with software that automatically backs up your docs and pictures. The one that I use and recommend is the Seagate FreeAgent Desk 500GB External Hard Drive ($79). What makes me love this drive is the fact that it comes with a great software package that backs up my documents every night.  This means that if my computer’s internal hard drive goes bad I only stand to lose 1 days worth of data at the most. Unless my external drive somehow goes bad at the same time as my internal drive.

This is where Mozy online backup service comes in. Mozy is a great service that runs on your computer and uploads your documents to a computer on the internet where they will be safe no matter what happens to your local computer. You may worry about the security of this process but you can feel safe that your data will be encrypted before it is transfered so none else can read it except for you.  The best thing is that Mozy only costs about $5 a month for unlimited data.

Think about it for about $85 you can implement a very solid backup solution and you wont have to worry about  your data being lost.

Incase you missed the links:

• Seagate FreeAgent Desk 500GB External Hard Drive
• Mozy