external harddisk problem

[kenny1999]

hi
i am always worried about the probable error of my external harddisk some day soon because I've already used it for approx 2 years, it works well now though. I 've got a few things to ask

1. is there any trick or software so that I can have an idea of how good my harddisk is now.

2. that is 3.5 inch external harddisk with external power cord, is it necessary to safely remove it each time I don't use it, and is it necessary to cut off the power to the harddisk as well when it is not used.

Thanks

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

You might want to consider the temperature of your HDD.
When they are spinning and do readings/writings,they become very hot and they will last shorter if they run in a very high temperature all the time.
So what I would do is to make sure that they are cold all the time when they are being used.I cool mine with 6 fans from 4 different sides.(But that's just me lol).
What you could do for a beginning is to use a simple cooling attachement.Something like this one:

Just screw it on your HDD and connect the power cable to your power supply.And from then on every time when the PC is turned on,fans will start immediately and keep your HDD cool.
Trust me it will be a LOT cooler with this rather without it because without it HDD gets REALLY hot from the outside so you can imaginate how hot it is INSIDE lol.

 

[ayan]

1. is there any trick or software so that I can have an idea of how good my harddisk is now.

Yes. You could use SMART monitoring, even though it is an external HDD. There are a few utils out there that can test/ monitor external HDDs. Depending of the importance of the stored data, u might consider a paid app - one that gives you a nicely formated report.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_S.M.A.R.T._tools