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High Capacity, High Speed, High Impact, Hard Disk Failures!

By: One Small Voice

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Good Morning!

It is like me to wait up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom then checking the email on my computer. However now that I am awake, I keep thinking about one of my computer clients who has had two recent (over a couple years) hard disk failures.

While not total disasters because he has done the necessary frequent backups of his important data? (and then storing a copy off-site in case of a totally destructive home fire??), these hard disk failures are never the less causing both emotional stress (what do you do when your computer is down?) and financial stress on his pocketbook (the cost of a new hard drive and the cost to recreate his operating system then adding all the applications and data he uses back onto his computer).

So I am here at 2 something in the A.M. thinking about the causes of hard disk failures (failure analysis). While my final answer is yet to be concluded (I may fall asleep soon), I am thinking that the reasons for these hard disk failures may be due to:

1. FLAW! in the construction of the hard disks by the manufacturer causing premature failure (premature as in less than say 4 or 5 year life time expectancy). Not likely as these disks are made by a major manufacturer but then again who knows? … And manufacturers are not likely to jump up and down saying their products crap out early.

2. HEAT! Yes and there is a lot of it inside that little box you call your computer (and/or laptop). While my client has a big 4 or 5 inch fan on the inside of the computer, another fan on the end of a plastic tunnel from the top of the heat sink that is on top of the CPU (Central Processing Unit i.e. the brains of the computer that gets really worked up trying to process all the stuff you want your computer to figure out for you), and another fan on the backside of the power supply. Having 3 fans should tell you how much heat that is created inside of the little computer box you have (more so in a laptop as laptops are not well ventilated or have as many fans!). The CPU is the major heat creator (more so as CPUs become smaller in size, faster capacity, and cheaper in price) however that disk drive does spin at 7200 rpm (120 revolutions per second: reading and writing data starting at anywhere at the start of the 250,000,000 byte positions (for a 250 GB drive). And there is a little electric motor inside of the hard drive just burning to get your email and other data processed). [while looking up the dive specs, I found this review at: http://review.zdnet.com/product/hard-drives/maxtor-onetouch-4-plus-250gb/32624409 with a cyber Monday price of $64.95!] Now back to the HEAT question… yes there are heat creators inside of the computer and fans to throw out the heat and vents to pull in cooler air from the outside, however my client has his computer in one of those small sections inside a very nice looking oak desk! That has not a lot of ventilation! Maybe excessive HEAT is causing the disk inside of the hard drive to warp?

3. ELECTRICITY! I mentioned a fan on the back side of a power supply, while this is actually a power converter! It converts your house current into smaller 12, 6, 3.5 etc volts. See all those wires coming from the inside of the power supply to the different devices and mother board in your computer? See that some of those wires are smaller than others? See how they use different red, white, yellow, blue etc colors? While the electricity (voltages) coming across those wires may be different, the plugs on the end are unique for the device that uses that amount of volts. Nothing wrong so far… oops? Was that a power spike from a static change hitting the computer after you walked across the carpet? Glad it was not my arm as that zap may have hurt! As it could hurt these electronics inside your computer!! Hey was that lightening outside? And there goes the lights: they blinked! Wonder what type of trouble that blinking electricity causes your computer? Not to worry…. if you have a $40 +/- (Walmart) backup power supply and surge protector that you computer is plugged into (the backup power gives you a few minutes to shut down your computer after those lights blink off for hours during that incoming wind/rain/snow/lightening/thunder storm.. to be coming soon to a neighborhood near you!).

Well now it’s 3 something in the A.M. so I am going to let you think about hard disk (and other computer problems): FLAWS, HEAT, ELECTRICTY, and SHAKING (what I didn’t mention but what do you think happens when your computer is jarred, shaken, or moved while that disk inside the hard drive is reading and writing your data via a small, very little needle?).

Good Night!
- One Small Voice
- P.S. not to have mentioned the adverse effects of viruses and spyware on computer operations and data!

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

OneSmallVoice@stuffedwidgets.com

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