Why Did Your Hard Drive Fail?

19, Mar, 2012

When a hard drive fails, we are often asked “How did this happen?” We thought we’d try to shed some light on the subject.

A little history: The first Hard Disk, created by IBM in the mid 50’s, only held about 5MB of data. That’s about a song or two in .mp3 format. Incredibly, this was rented to users for more than 3,000 dollars a month.

Using this schematic as a guide, please follow along:

The read-write head (the arm that looks like a record player arm), rides on an ultra-thin layer of air as the platter (disk) spins. Each of the platters has it’s own arm and they are separated by just millimeters. This separation is of utmost importance. If one of these heads comes in direct contact with highly-polished surface of the platter it will scratch it and damage the head or the platter, often both.

The read-write heads move very fast; they can flip back and forth over the total surface of the disk at least 50 times a second, while, at the same time, gathering or recording data.

As the disk/platter spins, the read-write heads scan back and forth and digital data is magnetically transferred to or read from microscopic tracks on the disk’s surface.

These magnetic traces are organized into tracks and sectors.

Hard drives also have speed limitations. The speed at which data can be written to and read from a hard drive represents a major limiting factor in retrieval speed.

If you see the specifications on two hard drives, for example — one of which reads and writes information at 12ms (millionths of a second) and the other one at 8ms — you know that the smaller number is better because it represents less time.

Most notebooks have a hard drive that spins at 5,400 rpm, while most desktops run 7,200 or 10,000 rpm drives. Given the speeds at which these platters are spinning, you must admit it’s amazing they ever work at all.

Although hard drives can have life spans of many thousands of hours, all of them, given enough time, will fail. It is never a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.

When a hard drive fails, often with no notice, you can lose all of the data on the hard drive. For this reason you should regularly back up all your important files to another location. Two important things to remember about backups:

1. Backups left on the same physical location are identical to having no backup.
2. Data backup is always cheaper than data recovery.

Basic Rates

25, Jan, 2012

Empire Rate Sheet:

Most work is completed in 48-72 hours.
ALL estimates, consultations and jobs will be invoiced regardless of charge.
ALL work and training is to be billed as follows

On Site:

Pick-up/Drop-off fees:
$39 for immediate area (5 mile radius from our store)
$59 for extended area (10 mile radius from our store)
$79 for remote area (beyond 10 mile radius from our store)

On Site Disassemble/Assemble Fee: $29
Hourly rate on-site = $108 with a one hour minimum

In Store:

Estimate and Diagnostic Fee = $39 (waived if we perform work)
Estimate and Diagnostic Fee while you wait = $69
Flat rate for most software services: $89
Flat rate for most software services while you wait: $119
Case Cleaning: $19
Case cleaning as part of larger service: $14
In some cases, cleaning is mandatory if working inside your PC presents a health hazard.

Flat rate Services:

Residential Virus Clean and/or System Optimize: $89
Commercial Virus Clean and/or System Optimize: $99
System Reinstall with data backup: $159
System Reinstall with NO data backup: $129

Further rate schedules are posted in the store or call for more information