HDD Health & Top-Stuff

[gonferreira]

Hi guys.
Just registered but i read Gizmo's for a long time. Now i have 2 questions for you guys:

- I have an external HDD (1TB) and it's very slow now. I checked with CrystalDisk and it's health is Critical. I am trying to defrag the HDD, but it turns off somehow. Ok, the question is: is there any kind of software that can give a little heath to my HDD?

- This is not related to the topic above: i am a "maniac" about security and amazing software. What kind of "brilliant" software do you recommend? The ones you must love

Thanks

[Anupam]

Hi gonferreira, welcome to the forum .

About your first question, if a hard disk's health is critical, you should backup your data on it, as soon as possible, and replace the hard disk. There is no software which can increase the health of a failing hard disk. The more you try to play with it, the more it will degrade. So, once you know its failing, backup your data as soon as you can. There is no point in defragging the data too, it will increase hard disk operation more, leading to a rapid failure.

If its in warranty, get it replaced... otherwise, get a new hard disk.

About your second part of the question, please ask it as a separate thread in the Security forum. It will help keep things in order, otherwise mixing of two topics can get confusing.

[Ritho]

As Anupam says, do nothing else to the drive until you have backed up and VERIFIED all your data. I believe CrystalDisk uses S.M.A.R.T to monitor your disks. Hard disk SMART technology is designed to warn you if something in your drive is beginning to malfunction. While there is some question about the accuracy of reliability of the technology, it is still a good idea to head its warnings.

I also agree that defragging at this point is dangerous. It is not necessary.

[gonferreira]

At first it took an unusual time to access the files in it, so i assumed that it was something related with the mess down there. So i went to the defrag

But i guess that the best option is to buy another external HDD since there is no other solution

[Ritho]

Well what I would do would be to back up your data on it, then get a second opinion. There are a lot of various tools out there that can test drives and read the SMART information about the drive. Usually your MotherBoard BIOS can even give you a limited report on the dive. It could be that there are a group of sectors that have suddenly gone bad, but I have seen that happen, then the drive lives on.