Hard Drive failure causes

Hard drives are delicate works of engineering and electronics which need to be protected from extreme conditions if they are to survive through their expected lifetime without giving any problems. Hard drives have a natural lifetime, and it is important to care for them properly if they are expected to survive that long.

Hard Drive failures, including RAID failures, can occur for different reasons. The main 4 categories of hard drive failure are the following:

1. The hard drive’s onboard software/firmware may fail, resulting in the hard-drive and the computer being unable to communicate with each other.
2. Problems such as short circuits or electrical power surges may damage the onboard electronics of the hard drive/s, resulting in electronic damage.
3. Mechanical parts in the disk maybe become faulty for a variety of reasons, leading to the situation where the disk can practically not read itself.
4. Finally, Logical corruption may occur, which means that the data itself is damaged or corrupted (rather than the hard drive).

The main reasons for Hard drive failures are the following:

Overheating: This is probably the main cause of hard drive failure. Overheating can result from fire/smoke or simply because of lack of proper cooling systems in the hard drive’s housing. Be sure that the hard drive is properly cooled by fans, a/c and/or other cooling systems. be also sure to give the hard drive time to rest and cool down – don’t overwork it.

Excess vibration and physical force: Hard drives are delicate – no matter how much protection they may have, it is always important to avoid excessive force on the hard drive. This includes drops, bumps, any sort of vibration, and so on. If there is some sort of impact or strong force or vibration while the hard drive is in use, this may result in the drive head (the part that reads the data from the actual disk) scraping the platter (where the data is saved). This sort of damage causes the scratched area to be unreadable. It is often not immediately noticed when this happens, not until the damage starts building up after repeated scratchings. This is another very common cause of hard drive failure. These days most hard drives have accelerometers to protect from sudden drops and jarring.

Static electricity: This can be a problem during handling, since static electricity can short the PCB board of a hard-drive. Be sure to earth yourself before you touch a hard drive. Also, just avoid touching the PCB board at all, especially when walking on a carpet.

Power surges: These can occur for various reasons, and can affect the read/write process (possibly corrupting data written during that moment) or can simply burn cause the computer to crash.

Water: As is well known, water can short circuits and damage mechanical components (especially over long periods of time). Keep water and humidity as far away from hard drives as possible.

File corruption: Data (thus files) can become corrupted for many reasons. Improper shutting down a program or computer, new software installs, power failures, and other instances where the computer’s normal functioning is abruptly shut off can all lead to hard drive failure.

Human interference: Sometimes a user may delete, alter, or move important system files, which can cause the hard drive to fail completely.

Other causes: Strong magnetic fields, faulty components which (which can die on you at any moment) and of course, old age can (and will in the case of old age) cause your hard drive to fail.

Keep very frequent backups and treat your hard drive/s well if you wish to stop bad things from happening (like getting fired)!

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