The Care and Feeding of Hard Disks Step 1: Caring for Your Hard Disk The basic rules

of thumb for caring for a hard disk are 3 Don't drop your computer. 3 Unless you have a laptop or other computer designed for travel don't move it any more often than you have to. 3 !f you're relocating to another office or building try to pack the computer in its original packing materials to cushion it during the move. 3 "ost important back up your data regularly. #perate on the assumption that sooner or later your disk $ill fail %probably a day or t$o before some crucial deadline&. Step 2: How Hard Drives Work "ost hard drives spin at thousands of revolutions per minute. 'hile the disk is spinning the read($rite heads on hard disks hover above or belo$ the disk's surface at a distance of millionths of an inch. %To make it a little more concrete the distance bet$een the read($rite heads and a spinning disk is less than half the $idth of a particle of smoke.& 'hen your computer is turned off the read($rite heads do come to rest on the surface of the disk but only $ithin a specified parking area that is reserved for this purpose and is never used for storing information. Step 3: Hard Drive Malfunctions !f your hard drive malfunctions for some reason or you drop your computer on the floor the read($rite heads may fall onto the disk permanently damaging it. This event $hich is actually )uite rare in modern*day hard drives is kno$n as a head crash. !f someone tells you that their hard disk +crashed + they probably mean it under$ent a head crash. Step 4: !e "ap #etween t!e $ead%Write Head and t!e Disk The small but essential gap that e,ists bet$een the surface of the disk and the read($rite heads e,plains $hy hard disks al$ays live inside sealed containers safe from such ha-ards as smoke dust particles and soda pop. .ecause the distance bet$een the disk and the read($rite head is half the si-e of a smoke particle any encounter $ith such a particle $ould be like a high*speed go*cart running into a boulder. Step &: 'rag(ented 'iles !'ve been representing each file as occupying a single discrete area of a disk. !n reality files are usually stored in segments scattered across the disk. The first part of a file may be $edged in bet$een t$o other files for e,ample*perhaps in the space previously occupied by a file you later deleted. .ecause the $hole file cannot fit in that space your computer makes a note of $here the ne,t piece is stored %rather like the ne,t clue in a treasure hunt&. !f there isn't enough room for the rest of the file in that second spot your computer makes a note of $here the third piece is stored and so on. Files stored in this $ay are said to be fragmented. Step ): Defrag(enting Your Hard Disk #ver time your hard disk $ill accumulate many fragmented files %files stored in clusters scattered across the disk&. /very time you load one of these files into memory your computer has to 0ump from one part of the hard disk to another collecting all the file's different pieces. 1ou can improve your computer's efficiency by periodically defragmenting your hard disk*that is running a special program that rearranges data so all the parts of each file occupy contiguous areas %clusters& on the disk. %1ou can compare this process to a bunch of people trading seats so a group of friends can sit together.&