Designing web sites and desktop applications for a living entices people to ask me for help with their systems. This is just as much a relationship business as it is a technical business, so I found by offering help I am able to build relationships. The most sought after advice or service is recovering from a crashed computer. The number one tip I can give you here is to prevent the crash before it happens. The key to doing that is keeping your computer hard drive clean. Here’s how:
Step 1 – Clean the hard drive of deleted and unneeded files by using the Windows Disk Cleanup Tool. On most systems, you can find this tool under Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools. Running this tool does take time, so set an hour aside once a month. Just cleaning the files off your hard drive will keep your hard drive clean and uncluttered.
Step 2 – Defragment your hard drive. When a file is saved to your hard drive, it is like writing a sentence on a lined piece of paper. It starts at the top left and starts writing the file. Now imagine a full page of sentences. If you don’t need a sentence or need to write more on this page, you will need to erase a line or two. This holds true for the hard drive. When you delete files from your hard drive it has space here and there. When files are written, the hard drive needs to utilize its space wisely so it will go to the top left and start to write the file until the first hole is full. If the file didn’t fit into one hole or space, it goes to the next open space to continue to write the file until the file is written and saved to the hard drive. The file is now called a fragmented file. The hard drive is very good at tracking these fragments, however it does take time to collect the fragments and reconnect them in order for you to open.
Over time, your hard drive becomes fragmented to a point where it is taking a long time to collect all of the file fragments to reassemble the file. This is called a fragmented hard drive. One sound solution is to use another tool called Disk Defragmenter.
Running this tool once a month after the Disk Cleanup tool, will save time, space and wear and tear on the mechanical parts moving back and forth over the storage media.
Step 3 – Use the Evolve Vault to keep backups of your files off-site and in a safe and secure location only you have access too. The Evolve Vault runs quietly in the background. When there is an Internet connection, it will keep your vault in sync with the directory you have chosen to back up. The Evolve Vault can run on Windows or Mac and has an unlimited amount of storage.
Today the Evolve Vault Backup Solution costs $49.50 a year. That is only .13 cents a day, for unlimited storage. It is also half the cost and none of the hassles of maintaining your own hardware for backups.
What will you lose if your system goes down?
I am so confident you’re going to love using the Evolve Vault! During year of 2012, we are offering it to our subscribers for $20.12 for a year! That’s .06 Cents a day for peace of mind.
Just go to http://evolvevault.com/packages-pricing/ and click the Backup Buy Now Button.
Enter code CIO2012 for your special discount.
*This article was written by our CIO Carl Boudreau as part of our monthly CIO Corner series.*
