Hard drive too hot? – Causes and solutions

HDD Too Hot

If you’ve ever touched a hard drive (either internal or external) after it’s been running for some time, you’ve probably noticed that it’s quite warm. Being a mechanical component, we would expect a hard drive to generate some heat during normal operation. Like most computer components, however, the hard drive is susceptible to damage should … Read more

What to do after installing a new hard drive

Contents1 Introduction2 Overview3 Windows3.1 Confirm that the new hard drive isn’t showing3.2 Open “This PC”3.3 Check that the drive isn’t listed3.4 Launching Disk Management3.5 Rescan Disks3.6 Initialize the new disk3.7 Create a new volume4 Linux4.1 Getting the ID of the new disk with lsblk4.2 Partitioning the new disk with cfdisk4.3 Formatting the new partition with … Read more

Hard Drive Alternatives – The Complete Guide

HDD Alternatives

Contents1 Introduction2 List of hard drive alternatives2.1 Solid State Drives (SSD)2.2 Cloud Storage2.3 USB Flash Drives2.4 RAID2.5 NAS2.6 Optical Disc2.7 Tape3 Summary Introduction If you’ve spent any time browsing the various forums or subreddits dedicated to data-hoarding, you’ve likely seen this common question being asked: “What are the best hard drive alternatives?”. This is often … Read more

Hard disk storage capacity list

List of HDD capacities

Introduction I’ve been regularly buying hard disk drives for the best part of three decades. Over this time, the capacities have increased tremendously. It’s sometimes difficult to appreciate just how much hard disk capacities have increased over this time. Whilst many data-hoarders are well aware of current drive capacities, there’s still some confusion from the … Read more