Buying a New Hard Drive After a Disk Failure After you have experienced hard drive failure it is advisable that you invest in a new drive. This is because the root of the problem could still be there and you might have to go through the whole inconvenience of data loss all over again. There are a lot of things to consider when buying a new drive and these are some of the most important aspects to bear in mind. Make sure to do your research and don’t skimp on quality on what is an important component of your computer.

	You might think that there is just one type of hard drive, but you actually have two options: a standard hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD). The former consists of rotating platters which are then read by heads and due to the delicate nature of them there is always the chance that the two components could collide and cause data corruption. The latter uses none of this, instead just using a memory chip which can store data without using mechanical parts. Access times on a SSD can be up to 50 times faster than a HDD due to the fact that there’s no wait for the platters to spin – the data is there straight away. There is far less likelihood of physical damage on a SSD due to the shock resistance and they’re also lighter than their standard counterparts. The biggest problem is that they are far more expensive than a regular hard disk drive and their maximum capacity is much lower too. It’s a good option for expanding your computer with an extra drive, but at the moment a HDD would probably be the best choice. When buying a new hard drive you could consider the option of buying a refurbished drive instead of a new one. This means a drive that has previously malfunctioned and has been returned, fixed and then sold at a cheaper rate. However, these usually come with a far shorter warranty due to the fact that there’s a higher chance than the drive will mess up again. Of course, a refurbished drive could turn out to be perfectly fine – but why take the chance when new drives are getting cheaper and already prone to failure? If it’s going to be storing important data then you want to make sure you’re buying a drive that is likely to last. The revolutions per minute (rpm) of a drive also need to be taken in to account. This number shows how fast the platter rotates which means that the data will be able to be read and written quicker the higher the figure. You’ll want a drive that spins at 7200 rpm at a minimum and this is usually good enough for the average consumer. A lot of drives with five figure rpm speeds are typically only useful for large businesses and it’s also worth bearing in mind that the quicker the drive rotates then the higher chance it has of failing due to the fact that the drive is under increased stress. It is important to know that there are two main causes of drive failure: logical or mechanical. The former occurs when there is something wrong with the information stored on the drive, such as data that has become corrupted. This is the easiest to solve of the two failure types and home users can actually perform the recovery themselves by using commercially available software. If the drive has failed mechanically then it means it has been physically damaged, with the “click of death” (as mentioned in a previous article) often being heard coming from within the computer case. Recovery of a mechanically failed drive should not be attempted at home and it is here where specialist data recovery companies come in.
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