X-bit labs

Thursday, February 9, 2006

HDD Lifespan: How Much Left? When Your HDD Nearing Death

Sad, but true is that computer components do not last forever. Even though a burnt down central processing unit (CPU) or graphics card is always an unpleasant thing to happen, nothing could compare to a broken hard disk drive (HDD). If the data had not been backed up from time to time and it could not be extracted from the broken hardware, the cost of such failure may be incomparable.

Apart from constant data back-upping, it is also good to know when your HDD is about to fail. There are a number of actions described by hddsaver.com web-site, which should help to diagnose HDD’s condition and evade the damage that could be done by a suddenly unworkable HDD.

“While there are few sure-fire signs of impending disk failure there are some warning signals that give us the hint. Watch out for: disappearing files, very long wait while accessing files, files/folders whose contents appear to be strangely scrambled, reoccuring error messages while moving/copying/deleting/creating files, and strange but frequent crashes of your OS. A telltale sign is any loud, low, irregular, clicking, or grinding sound which is emitted from the drive,” says the article.

“Programs like fsck (Linux), chkdsk (DOS), and scandisk (Windows) are not specifically designed to find hardware problems, but they are useful for identifying bad sectors which may be indicative of bigger problems,” adds the author.

• Hddsaver.com: Diagnose a Failing Hard Drive.

ATI's and Nvidia's Video Accelerating Technologes Compared. Avivo and PureVideo Examined

The majority of computers these days come with integrated graphics and perfectly cope with programs like Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer browser. But in case a computer is bought for entertainment purposes, then users get concerned both about performance in modern games as well as multimedia playback. Both ATI and Nvidia have implemented technologies into their graphics chips which are claimed to improve different video data playback. The question for end-users is to find out whose one is better.

ExtremeTech takes a look at ATI’s Avivo as well as Nvidia’s PureVideo technologies in order to determine, which approach delivers better image quality and higher video decoding performance.

“Clearly, ATI offers better video support in their latest graphics cards than Nvidia does. They dominate the HQV benchmark tests, offer much lower CPU utilization for DVD playback, and offer solutions for acceleration H.264 and DivX (though one requires a specific codec and the other a specific player). In really tough video scenarios, like those with odd cadence patterns or noisy DVDs, ATI delivers better quality. Their de-interlacing algorithms seem just a little bit better, too,” writes ExtremeTech.

• ExtremeTech: Video Shootout: ATI vs. Nvidia.