You’ll notice that the title of this article does not say format a hard drive but rather erase.

Most people are under the assumption that formatting a hard drive erases everything on it. Not true. A formatted drive can have its data recovered easily with utilities like this one.

Residual data that remains on a hard drive after it’s been formatted is referred to as data remanence.

While it is said that there is no way to truly erase a hard drive, low level formatting using what’s commonly known as a "DoD-7" will make it extremely difficult to recover data once this type of formatting has been performed.

The technical name for the DoD-7 is the US Department of Defense’s standard "National Industry Security Program Operating Manual" (US DoD 5220.22-M ECE). This formatting method overwrites a file seven times and is considered secure.

The DoD’s approach is, "Overwrite all addressable locations with a character, its complement, then a random character and verify."

DoD-7 formats take a very long to complete, usually several hours. For some larger drives it may take the better half of a day before it’s finished.

When it is appropriate to perform DoD-7 formats?

For normal home use it’s not necessary since you are the one using the hard drive. However if you’re selling a hard drive or selling a computer with a hard drive you’ve used before, you should DoD-7 format it. Doing so gives you peace of mind that whoever gets your drive or computer won’t get access to any data that was on there before.

How can you perform a DoD-7 format?

There are both free and paid utilities to do this task.

One of the better paid utilities is KillDisk. This software is very convenient because not only will it install to a floppy disk, but also make a self-bootable USB stick or CD. Most of you out there would probably use a USB stick. Simply pop the stick in, run the software, choose the appropriate drive letter and you’ll have a boot-ready stick in a few short minutes. It has both DOS and Windows options, but to be honest the DOS version is easier and loads much faster.

A freeware utility that many swear by is Darik’s Boot and Nuke, commonly known as DBAN. It’s not as easy to use or configure as KillDisk is, but it definitely does the job.

Final note: Concerning low level formatting of this type, there is literally no reason to have a Windows style environment to do it. It is completely unnecessary to have VGA resolution and a mouse pointer just to perform a format. Do it the DOS/terminal way because it’s the best, fastest and most efficient.

Using NewEgg, here’s the scoop on what hard drives cost right now.

Cheapest of the cheap: Hitachi Deskstar, 80GB, $32.99. And yes it is a SATA 3GB/s. Bear in mind a Western Digital flavor is just one dollar more.

King of the hill (price-wise): HP 347708-B22 147GB, $499. What makes this hard drive expensive is its 15,000 RPM. If you feel inclined to buy one of these, bear in mind it’s a SCSI interface.

Solid State Disks: All of them are still too expensive and makes the HP listing above look like a steal. See, the deal is that if you want SSD now, you’ll most likely need the controller card to go with it. And this can easily bust over $1,000. But even if you have the controller card and just want the SATA II SSD alone, 120GB can cost $400.

Drives that normal people would actually want

The 500GB drives are now below the $60 price point, many of which have free shipping.

1TB drives are now below the $80 price point. I can’t believe this is true but it is. If prices keep dropping at this rate, 1TB will be had for $50 by fourth quarter 2009.

Make no mistake, 1TB is huge. It will take you a good long time to fill that. But the problem that presents itself is how to back it up. The solution is to buy two 1TB drives. One for your primary; the other as backup.

Important note to Windows XP users concerning hard drives

A basic NTFS volume has a maximum recognized size of 2TB. With 64KB clusters, it is possible to achieve a 256TB dynamic volume.

If you intend to go over 2TB with NTFS, get educated on how to create or convert to dynamic volumes. Everything you need to know about those type of volumes is in that link. Read it and bookmark it.

When one thinks of a hard drive, style doesn’t usually come to mind. That’s because most people don’t care about that sort of thing. However when the style is actually functional, that’s a different story and is desirable.

Enter the My Passport portable hard drive from Western Digital. This is a 500GB portable drive that connects via USB 2.0. It also comes in 400, 320 and 250GB sizes as well. And it comes in 9 different colors – but you don’t care about that.

What you do care about is what it looks like and what makes it truly portable.

Here’s a few images of it:

This is certainly better than a larger USB hard drive caddy especially considering it does the same job and is self-powered via the USB. No external power supply needed. That’s a huge plus.

For those using Windows you also get 128-bit encryption.

The price? It’s $149 thru Western Digital or if you shop around you can get one for as low as $109. When I checked the price I honestly thought it was going to cost a whole lot more, but thankfully it stays well within a reasonable price range.

The biggest drawback is that USB 2.0 can be a bit slow. Do not expect it to have blazing fast performance. As long as you remember that, this is very usable tech.

Were you to try to get the same amount of storage with USB sticks you would easily spend over $200. And with a 3.5-inch setup you have to deal with a power supply.

This is probably one of the cheapest, easiest and most useful backup solutions yet. And for those with media center computers this would also serve quite well.

Would you buy one?

Is this tech something that sounds good to you, or would you rather stay with the older 3.5-inch setups? Let us know in the comments.

Something interesting to think about is how long data will last, because as everyone knows, nothing is forever.

Here’s a rundown on how long you can expect the media you use to last.

"Media" defined: Data storage on something physical that you own, be it hard disk, optical, flash or tape. I don’t list floppy diskettes because nobody uses those anymore.

Assumptions:

• You are using the media a minimum once per week and when not in use is disconnected and/or unpowered from the electronic mechanism it uses to write data to and stored (ex: you take the DVD out of the drive, put it in a case and store it).
• You are physically storing your media in a dry place at room temperature (72° F / 22° C).

Hard Disk

A production-use hard disk usually has a life span of 3 to 5 years. Some last longer, but trust me there is a reason why most hard drive manufacturers usually do not have hardware warranties that go beyond 5 years.

A hard disk used for backup purposes lasts longer because it isn’t used as often. You can assume the HDD will last at least 7 years. But bear in mind that is an assumption.

As a short-term backup solution, hard disks are a good choice. As a long-term solution, not so much given their relatively short life span.

For more information, this really old (but still relevant) post from our own PCMech forums will give you tons of useful info concerning the life span of a hard disk drive.

Optical

Optical media that you use is CD, DVD, the now-defunct HD DVD and Blu-ray.

Assuming you have a decent CD/DVD burner drive, the life span of optical media almost exclusively depends on how well the disc was made.

Premium-grade media can easily last 10 years. And no, you won’t find it at Wal-Mart. The best possible writable CD/DVD media you can buy is manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. A Google search will reveal where to get some if so inclined. It is lauded as the best of the best. That’s because it is. And yes, you’ll pay good money for it too.

For the rest of us, there’s name brand and generic optical media. You can expect name brand (Memorex, Verbatim, etc.) to last about 5 years. Some of you out there will get 7 to 10 but I personally wouldn’t put that much faith into this type of media.

Concerning generic, the plastic may separate from the aluminum in less than a year. Not a good choice.

With optical media, yes, you get what you pay for concerning life span. No question.

Tip: It is better to store optical discs in jewel cases instead of books. Natural problems (like pages of discs sticking to each other from sitting there too long) can happen with those fold-out books.

Flash

It has been speculated that flash based media, such as a USB stick, will last 8 to 10 years easily. This is because there are no moving parts, the heat it generates is minimal and the way it connects and disconnects to a computer is nearly impossible to get wrong (and therefore almost impossible to break).

What most people will encounter with a USB stick in the future is expiring the amount of times data can be written to it or erased before age-related failure. Most USB sticks will allow one million write and/or erase cycles before it cannot be used any longer.

If a USB stick is used as backup media where it is only used once a week, it is highly unlikely you will ever tap that limit.

But the limit age-wise for data retention is stated to be 10 years and no longer at present.

Tip: You might want to use a label-maker and mark the stick with a date 9 years from now (this gives you enough buffer of time from date of manufacture). Who knows? You might still have it then. And you’ll know the stick will soon fail when the date marked is reached.

If you’re thinking, "How can I be sure USB will even be around in nine years?" It will be. Even if it is replaced by another technology, you will still be able to access the data on it somehow.

Think of it this way: Right now nobody uses floppy diskettes any longer, yet you can still buy a floppy diskette drive and disks easily. At worst, USB flash drives will end up like that. Woefully obsolete, but still accessible.

Tape

This is probably going to surprise a few of you, but premium grade tape backup can last 50 years. Sound ridiculous? It’s not. This method of backup is usually only used by large enterprise and government IT centers.

Tape is one of those things that is about as old-school as you can get when it comes to data storage. True, the technology has advanced, the cartridges are built better and the media can store much more and is more reliable, but the method of the way it works is still essentially unchanged.

Tape media is still readily available, but for those looking for the "big guns", what you would want is certified 30-year tape media. The one notch after that is the premium 50-year. Yes, it’s overkill for most people (and wickedly expensive), but if you want something that lasts longer than anything else, tape is basically your only option.

For those who think tape backup is dead as a doorknob, I beg to differ. Maybe it’s dead as a consumer option, but in enterprise it’s still widely used. Maybe you’re not enterprise, but you can use it. In fact, tape is still the best bang for the buck long-term storage media there is.

If you think tape may be right for you, here are a few things you should be aware of:

First, tape decks do require cleaning. The way to clean is with a tape head cleaner cartridge. The heads will need to be cleaned periodically to ensure proper data writes.

Second, transfer speeds are defined differently but you can assume they’re going to be on the slower side. No, they are not molasses-slow as tape drives were years ago because we’ve got USB connectivity now, but it is true they’re not lightning quick, nor have they ever been.

Third, tape is very particular to format. There’s DLT, SDLT, 1/2-inch, LTO, 4mm, 8mm and so on. When shopping around for a deck, pay strict attention to format and how easy (or not easy) it is to acquire media for it.

Will there ever be a long-term backup solution better than tape?

The only media I know of that could potentially outlast tape is the internet itself. But obviously the internet is not physical media. In fact it’s not even physical. The storage of the internet is termed as putting data "in the cloud". However there are more than a few out there that would rather have media stored safely in a closet or attic rather than on some distant server run by someone else.

Chances are you’re more comfortable with the "un-clouded" way.

What’s the most convenient solution right now?

Tape may be the longest lasting, but USB sticks are the most convenient.

You can most likely fit every digital photo you’ve ever taken on a 4GB stick. And that’s under $15 to acquire.

You can most likely fit every email you have on a 2GB stick. And those are under $10.

As long as you remember to swap the sticks out once every 8 to 10 years, you’re in good shape.

That is unless you leave one in your pants pocket and run it thru a wash cycle while doing the laundry.

What do you use for backup media?

Do you use CD/DVDs? USB sticks? Tape? The internet itself? A combination?

Let us know by writing a comment.

Make no mistake, hard drives run hot. Granted, they’re not a hot as the processor or the RAM, but processors have big fat heat sinks and a fan cooling them down and you can get RAM with heat spreaders.

So what can you do to cool off the hard drive? Attach a fan to it. How much do they cost? They can be as little a 3 bucks or as expensive as 30 bucks.

The Big Question: Does this extend the overall life of the hard drive?

Some say yes and swear by them. Others say it makes no difference.

Most people will use hard drive coolers not to extend hard drive life but rather to keep the overall inside case temperature down. And yes it does help out quite a bit in this respect.

The benefit of using a drive cooler is that it actually helps to extend the life of your entire computer. Everyone knows a cool computer is a happy one.

The drawback is that fans make noise. The more fans are present the more your computer sounds like a washing machine in spin cycle.

If a hard drive cooler sounds right to you, when shopping be sure to pay keen attention to the noise level rating (listed as dBA, the lower the number, the better).

Periodically I am asked whether it’s “safe” to leave a computer on all the time. The answer is yes if it’s a desktop (meaning not a laptop).

Chances are if you’ve been using computers long enough you’ve encountered at least one instance where some type of hardware failure occurred right as you turned on the box – and I’m betting it had something to do with a part that continually rotates when active.

Continually rotating parts in a computer are fans and hard drives (on the inside), and the most “grunt” needed is when they spin up from an absolute stop. When spinning they don’t have to work as hard.

To note: A DVD drive does not continually rotate. This is because when not using it, it doesn’t spin at all whatsoever even when the box is on.

Concerning hard drives:

It’s a good bet if you’ve ever seen a hard drive failure, it probably happened from a “cold” start, then the infamous “disk not found” message appeared.

Concerning fans:

Fans accumulate dust whether you want them to or not. This adds weight to the fan blades and can also dry out the bearing(s). If the fans stay spinning they will continue to do so almost indefinitely. However if they’re old and clogged up with dirt (including the dirt you can’t see or clean out), one day they simply won’t spin up from a cold start at all.

Starting up a hard drive from an absolute stop requires the most effort from it just to get it spinning – and this follows suit with coolant fans.

I sincerely do subscribe to the theory that having the computer on all the time is safe and does make it last longer.

In the way I have my personal desktop box set up, I specifically set the hard drives to never “sleep” because it’s essentially the same as starting a drive cold.

I want to note this is my personal opinion on whether leaving a computer box on all the time is safe or not. Based on my personal experience, anything the moves in a computer is better off if you keep it moving and helps to prevent premature failure.

Chances are very high that other than USB sticks and optical discs, you’re using a fixed disk drive (a.k.a. the hard drive) that stores digitally encoded data on platters with magnetic surfaces.

The fixed disk drive you have is guaranteed to fail someday. I’m not saying this to scare you because it’s common knowledge. You already know you’re supposed to back up your data. What I’m getting at is that with all tech out there, it’s nothing short of amazing we still use these things considering how fragile they are and how easily they can break.

Continued

There are those who need big honkin’ hard drives and those who don’t.

Typically, those that need the big-big drives do one or more of the following:

• Video editing. Camcorder, DV, DVR, Tivo, DVD ripping, etc.
• Multitrack audio editing. The raw WAV files are quite large.
• Gaming. Many newer games require a significant amount of space.
• Photography. Even on point-and-shoot digital camera photos, each photo can easily be over 3MB in size. If you take a lot of photos this can add up in size rather quickly.

Those that don’t do any of the above or only on a semi-regular basis typically don’t need the big-big drives (or just use an external when required).

With that being said, here are the numbers as of now for what you’d pay if you decide to add on a hard drive.

All prices are listed in US dollars. All drive types are standard 3.5-inch form factor with SATA connector. Links provided are lowest price offerings from NewEgg. Always remember to do your research with hard drives before buying one. Just because something is lowest price doesn’t mean it’s the best offering (obviously).

80GB: $35

It makes no sense to purchase a 40GB any longer because the 80GB versions are cheaper by a few bucks. This is the smallest and cheapest available offering for SATA.

If you are still going super-old-school with Windows 98, this is the drive you want because the 120GB versions are tough to come by new and that is the maximum ‘98 will recognize (technically it’s 137GB but you obviously can’t buy a 137GB drive).

160GB: $42

I have no idea why this size is still even offered. It’s too big for old-school operating systems and to small for newer ones. I’d skip it.

250GB: $50

I wouldn’t bother with this one either. See next listing.

320GB: $50

It’s amazing that for just 8 bucks more you double the size from 160GB to 320GB.

500GB: $55

Yes, you can go for the big guns for just 55 bucks. Most would agree that this is the start of big-big territory by current standards.

640GB: $70

The 640GB size is a bit of an oddity because the 750GB version is just 5 bucks more (see next listing).

750GB: $75

We started at $35. Forty dollars later we’re in 750GB territory.

1TB (1000GB): $100

Twenty-five bucks after that we’re in terabyte territory.

1.5TB (1500GB): $120

Twenty bucks beyond that is one-and-a-half terabyte territory.

…and this is where we end.

For now.

NewEgg currently doesn’t stock 2TB internal hard drives – but I’m sure they’re right around the corner and waiting to be sold in ‘09.

Is the terabyte range worth the price?

Yes. When it broke $200 it was worth the asking price.

However for most people that don’t do a ton of video stuff (be it DV and/or DVR, etc.), 500GB will fit the bill nicely.