Newsletter Archives
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Tools for monitoring drive health
TROUBLESHOOTING
By Lance Whitney
Today’s PC storage media — traditional disk-based drives and newer solid-state models — are remarkably reliable.
And that’s sort of a problem: we can become lulled into forgetting that they do fail — that there’s always a chance of a catastrophic malfunction, especially as the drive ages. So it’s good practice to periodically check your drive’s health and find potential errors before they result in lost data.
There’s a plethora of utilities for checking the reliability and condition of both traditional platter-based drives and solid-state drives. Most use information gathered by the Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T. or, simply, SMART) tools built into nearly every modern drive.
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.5.0 (2020-02-03).
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Let your PC start 2020 right!
LANGALIST
By Fred Langa
Taking a little time now to thoroughly check and proactively service your Windows PC can pay off big-time in the coming year.
This easy-to-follow annual checkup is preventive medicine that can help ensure that your PC begins 2020 in the best shape possible!
Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.2.0 (2020-01-13).