How to Extend the Life of Your External Hard Drive
A portable hard drive is one of the most important accessories you can buy for your computer, since it contains backups of your most precious and significant files. Thus, it is important that you take good care of it since a dead portable drive can be catastrophic. Here are some tips for how to extend the life of your portable storage device.
Treat it gently. Since these notebook-style storage drives are small enough to be kept in a pocket, most people end up taking them for granted. But they can easily get damaged if you treat them roughly. So as much as possible, you should either keep them in one place or, if you have to carry your hard drive around, put it in a padded pouch or other secure container so it won’t get banged around. You should also get a carrying case for important peripherals such as USB cables. In addition, you should avoid the device getting wet or being exposed to vibrations.
Don’t keep doing casual saves directly to the external disk. Doing so might be too much for the drive. Instead, set up a scratch folder where you will save all the work you are currently doing. Once you are finished, save this folder onto the external drive. Keep doing this whenever you have to back up your work in order to avoid burning out your portable drive.
Make sure you actually eject the portabledrive from your computer. After you finish backing up your files, never just pull out the drive from the USB port. Instead, make sure you eject it by clicking on ‘eject’ in Windows Explorer. This will help prevent the data in the portable disk from being damaged. In addition, you should also take care of your USB cable. Make sure that when you pull it out, you hold it at the head rather than pulling at the cable itself.
In addition, check the connections to make sure that they are still secure. Loose connections can cause the external drive to connect and disconnect involuntarily, which can result in damage if the disk disconnects in the middle of a data transfer.
Keep them cool. As with internal hard drives, portable drives also generate heat when they are running. Make sure that, when they are plugged in to your computer, it is in a place where air can flow freely around the drive. You should also store you external drives in a cool place when not in use.
Make sure that the external drive lies flat while you’re using it. The drive should always be placed on a stable surface and lying flat, rather than upright or in any other position. This will help ensure that the mechanism inside is working properly.
Avoid buying cheap external drives. While it can be tempting to buy a cheaper drive if your financial resources are limited, it can cost you more money in the long run when it breaks down after a short period of use and you have to replace it.
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