Seek error rate is a hard drive performance metric reported through Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) tools.  Hard drives, solid-state drives, and other storage devices use SMART to monitor for issues that may indicate an impending failure. For hard...

A hard drive’s seek time is the time that the head assembly takes to travel to a specific track on the platters where data can be stored. Since seek time varies depending on which track it needs to access, “seek...

In data storage technology, a partition is a container with a file system. The file system allows the data storage device to manage files.  Every popular data storage device uses partitions. Without partitions, a device might still contain the magnetic...

If your computer identifies a hard drive (or other data storage device) as RAW, that means that the file system has become unreadable. The operating system cannot understand how the data is organized, so the drive is treated as unformatted. ...

Conventional wisdom holds that a hard drive lasts for about 3-5 years — and most manufacturer warranties tend to support that assumption.  But it’s important to remember that despite precise engineering, hard drives are profoundly sensitive devices. Recently, we’ve seen...

The Windows Management Instrumentation Command-Line Utility (WMIC) is a simple tool that allows users to manage their Windows operating system.It runs through the Command Prompt and can access information from Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART), a monitoring system...

Hard drives contain actuator heads that float just above the surface of the platters (discs coated in magnetic material that stores data).  When the actuator heads fail, data is inaccessible — and in many cases, the heads need to be...

Modern hard drives use error correction codes (ECCs) to make sure that data is readable, even when the write process is imperfect.  Hard disk drives store information through magnetic charges, and while actuator heads (also called read/write heads) are extremely...

The hard drive spindle is a shaft that holds the platters in place. The platters are disks coated with a thin magnetic material — that magnetic material stores your data. Modern hard drives often have multiple platters, and part of...

Solid-state drives offer numerous advantages for consumers: They’re faster than hard drives, more reliable (although still susceptible to failure), and more energy efficient.  However, they’re also much more expensive. According to Diskprices.com, the least expensive internal hard drives have a...