Hardware protection

You may be interested to check this: How does S.M.A.R.T. function of hard disks Work?

(available from Support -> Knowledge Base -> S.M.A.R.T. function at www.hdsentinel.com )

This describes exactly the problems with traditional S.M.A.R.T. methods and S.M.A.R.T. checking used in most environments/tools - which lead to assumption that hard disk problems can't be detected / predicted according the "Google study".

This is not really true - just we need a completely different method to check the error-counters, not rely on the threshold-value comparison.
This is one of the strongest point of Hard Disk Sentinel - as this way it detects and reports all (even minor) problems

 

Personally I do exactly this with Hard Disk Sentinel
There are automatic backup projects configured (as roady wrote) to save everything to other drives upon even a minor new problem found).
But I also configured Hard Disk Sentinel to perform daily scheduled incremental backups for the most critical files.

 

And I agree with that approach. There are many other potential issues beside a hardware glitch.

 

Yes of course: even accidental delete, virus, malware, confusion/issues caused by some Windows updates etc...

Personally I configured to Hard Disk Sentinel Pro to perform daily copy of the very most important source files I work with (some hundreds of MBs) to a different server once per day - and keep the last 100 complete backups.

This way Hard Disk Sentinel Pro automatically creates a new folder with the actual date for each backup, clear the oldest and archive the files.
So I can lookup and check back even for months and keep track the modification of the files when ever required.

 

It is important to have backups of data taken from good working hardware. You don't want to have the chance of faulty hardware making for a corrupt backup. You don't want to be fighting hardware which is in the process of failing - to give up your data.

One thing I think that everybody can use to help predict early failure in mechanical disks is temperature. It rises a few degrees as the electronics compensate for mechanics that are beginning to fall out of tolerance due to wear.

Vibration is a second indicator. Laptop drives that were once totally silent begin to emit a little buzzing noise or some vibration.

Much like a car engine, the parts loosen up over time, tolerances in surface finishes changes. Moving parts tend to crash into each other rather than sliding smoothly. The process accelerates exponentially till failure, albeit slowly.

I've got a 4 year old laptop disk that is beginning (in the slightest way) to exhibit those classic signs. A little bit more heat, a little bit of vibration. I bet I get one more year from it.

 

What very little data I keep that is important I keep with redundant backups, and I also use a UPS.