The hard drive is the most important part of a computer. In this age, computers can be applied to so many things therefore so much data is being stored in the computer be it personal or business information. Hard drives are the most common and important storage facility of the computer and they are not without their faults.
Overheating can damage the hard drive. Apart from overheating, viruses and crashes can result in hard drive inefficiency, while theft and accidental deletion can result in loss of precious data. RPM speed of the older computers were low, meaning that the drives would not get too hot easily.
These days, hard drives are made with speeds of between 7,200 and 10,000 which can make them quite hot when in use. Some computers come with fans and it is necessary to keep track of the heat of your hard drive. Fast hard drives come with speeds of 10,000 RPM, which can make the temperature rise above 70 degrees F, and heating things up inside the hard drive. The components inside the hard drive are built to withstand the heat, although if they become too hot, it can result in problems.
If a drive becomes too hot and ends up affecting the data, it may be very difficult to recover the information - even if your computer engineer is very good. Overheating is not good for the platters in the hard drive because the media is magnetic in nature. Platters are the data carriers in the hard drive. They are made from optical glass, aluminium, or ceramic and usually coated with magnetic material.
Once the hard drive begins to heat up, the platters will increase in size. The increase in size will destroy the magnetic surface, resulting in unreadable sectors and loss of data. Other parts of the hard drive that can be spoilt if too hot are the read and write heads, heat actuator, and the controller chip. Hard drives are very delicate therefore cannot withstand overheating. In particular the read and write heads can impair the hard drive if they are bad. When the read and write head is too hot it will not connect with the media, resulting in stoppage of flow of information to the computer.
In view of the above, it is important to keep the hard drive cool in a well ventilated environment with fans or airconditioners. There are also softwares that can keep track of the temperature of your hard drive. For hardware efficiency, undue expenditure on repairs and replacement of hard drive and prevention of data loss, please take the temperature of your hard drive very seriously.
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