High time you replaced your Hard Disks with SSDs (Solid State Drives)
As SSDs (Solid State Drive) become cheaper and the norm this is the best strategy to save your valuable data and improve computer performance.
Hard Disks are fast becoming obsolete. When it comes to your valuable data they actually post a risk. SSDs are not only getting smarter, bigger and more reliable these days but highly affordable too. However the biggest advantage with moving to SSDs is the safety of your data which you don’t want to compromise. If your normal hard disks are more than 4 years old you may want to seriously consider replacing them with SSDs. You may actually not know that your hard disks are close to dying or crashing which is a very scary thing.
Wondering if your hard disk is reliable or not? Here’s a simple trick. Download the free version of Hard Disk Sentinel (the Pro version has more features) and let it do a scan of your Hard Disks. Hard Disk Sentinel will do a scan of your computer disks when you open the program. Here is a screenshot of what Hard Disk Sentinel found with my hard disks.
I must mention that the Hitachi Deskstar hard disk has been wonderful and its been in the computer for almost a decade but when Hard Disk Sentinel reports that it has only 10% life remaining then it is a cause for alarm. But the real trouble was with my Seagate disk numbered as Disk:1 in the report. Though it had more life it had several bad sectors on it. It was periodically invoking the “chkdsk” command to fix the bad sectors and it has become more unreliable than the Hitachi one. I must also mention that Seagate hard disks haven’t lasted long on my PCs.
One word about Hard Disk Sentinel, make sure you uncheck the Load with Windows checkbox box that prevents it from starting up when you boot into Windows. This setting can be found under Preferences under Configuration.
Another program that can help you with finding if your disks are in trouble is Speccy from Piriform, which is also free (link to download at the bottom of this article). The screenshot from Speccy would look like as this.
The other advantage of the SSD is the relatively small size of the hard disk, just 2.5 inches in height and the SSD weighs much lesser than your average hard disk. Unlike normal hard disks you also do not have to worry if your SSD is fixed inside your computer (rendered immovable). Your normal hard disk will not withstand a jolt and can even get corrupted if shaken violently (happens when you drop your laptop or if your PC were to take a fall). The SSD on the other hand can handle all these with elan and is more robust. Most SSDs such as Crucial come with a 3 yr warranty but they last much longer. My desktop uses a 60 GB Crucial SSD for booting and it has been in there for 9 years. Hard Disk Sentinel reports that it is perfectly fine (refer above screenshot). I recently purchased a Crucial BX500 480 GB SSD. I had purchased the 60 GB SSD in 2011 for nearly twice the price I paid for the 480 GB one. SSD’s therefore are highly affordable these days. By the way the Crucial BX 500 SSD can go either into your laptop or your desktop. Isn’t that cool?
The best part is the performance. SSDs are way faster than conventional hard disks. You’ll notice an instant change in performance and speed. Without wasting time download the program below and give it a whirl to find out the status of your hard disks and move to SSDs if the reports aren’t favorable.
