Having a reliable storage for people to save their files, documents or projects at is important because if they do put it into storage they know they might or will need later. Losing important work stuff can cause a lot of trouble with the bosses or the managers because the company will be losing money while the employee has to redo the work that was done in the given time. This will also fall on my shoulders because I’m responsible for the quality of my work, which includes keeping the hard disk as reliable as possible and backing up the data if possible.
One of the ways to achieve reliability on the hard disk is by doing occasional disk cleaning. Microsoft has a tool called Disk Cleanup which allows me to delete any unneeded files, temporary internet files, files in the Recycle Bin, Hibernation files, setup log files, temporary files, thumbnails and office Web pages. Although it may sound that this tools delete too many things at once, it actually has the capability of choosing what particular things the users wants to be deleted. It is great because it keeps the hard disk from being crowded with stuff that is completely useless and just takes up the space for the important stuff.
Another way of making sure the disk is not being slowed down is by doing the defragmentation. If the hard drive is used extensively and large files are being stored the will be full of fragments very soon. Microsoft has also shown initiative with this issue and the Disk Defragmentation tool was created. This program is very easy to use but also crucial in making sure there are fewer complaints about my hard disk working slower than before. Before doing the disk defragmentation the program allows me to analyze the disk for any fragments. It will show me how badly the disk is and if the disk has been cleaned and defragmented than how much fragments are left from the recent use. After analyzing the disk I will than have a choice to either defragment it or not. I can also create a schedule for this tool to defragment the disk any time I want. Which is also great because then I don’t even have to worry about having to check the disk for fragments.
Diskpart is also one of the ways to make the hard disk perform better. It shapes the hard disk into partitions which can have different information on them. This particular tool allows the user to create a basic or a dynamic disk. Basic drive is basically a hard drive that’s divided into different parts and can store different information. Dynamic drive is also divided into different parts but it has more levels to it. Though this tool is advance and has many features it also is easy to mess up the hard drive with it. It lacks in security setups that keep the user away from damaging the configurations of the hard drive. So before using this tool it is important to have a clear understand f how it works and what the outcomes are if something goes wrong.
Disk management console allows the user to change disk between various types and partition styles. If in need to add new hard drives this is the tool that helps accomplish that. If user has a hot-swappable backplane and array he doesn’t even have to shut the system down. However if the user has conventional drives he will need to shut the system down. Initializing the disk will require setting the disk online first. When the new disk is online, the Initialize Disk dialog box will automatically display when you start Disk Management. When initializing the disk, we can choose whether to use Master Boot Record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table (GPT) as the partition style. For any disk larger than 2TB, GPT is recommended.
By performing disk management it will help us find out the space in the drive for a proper image, and by creating a partition we can safely work on different partitions and if something goes wrong save the operating system from failing in the main partition.
Basic disk is a term that refers to a disk containing partitions, such as primary and logical drives. They are usually formatted with a file system to become a volume for file storage. Basic disks provide simple storage solutions that have the ability of changing storage requirement scenarios. It allows adding more space to existing primary partitions and logical drives by extending them into adjacent, contiguous unallocated space on the same disk.
Dynamic disks provide features that basic disk don’t provide, which would be the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks and the ability to create fault-tolerant volumes. This type of drive provides greater flexibility for volume management because they use a database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and about other dynamic disks in the computer. Another difference between the two is that the dynamic disk volumes can be composed of a set of noncontiguous extents on one or multiple physical disks and on the basic disk the volumes consists of one set of contiguous extents on a single disk.