About PC Paramedic, Inc.

I am computer technician and have been working in the field for over 25 years. I grew up with computers at home and we had them before my school had any.

SSD will not lose data if left unplugged

Posted on November 7, 2017 by PC Paramedic, Inc.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wont-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

According to the article from PC World, SSD hard drives will not lose data if left unplugged for long periods of time. It seems that the original report on life span of SSDs was misquoted.

“The original presentation dates back to when Cox(the Seagate engineer who wrote the presentation) chaired a committee for JEDEC, the industry group that blesses memory specs. It was intended to help data center and enterprise customers understand what could happen to an SSD—but only after it had reached the end of its useful life span and was then stored at abnormal temperatures. It’s not intended to be applied to an SSD in the prime of its life in either an enterprise or a consumer setting.”

Chromebooks end-of-life

Posted on November 6, 2017 by PC Paramedic, Inc.

Google offers Chromebook OS updates for 5 years after the Chromebooks are manufactured, not 5 years from when you purchased them.

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

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hard drive health monitoring – S.M.A.R.T

Posted on October 29, 2017 by PC Paramedic, Inc.

S.M.A.R.T stand for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology; is a monitoring system included in computer hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs) that detects and reports on various indicators of drive reliability, with the intent of enabling the anticipation of hardware failures.

Currently Windows and Apple OS X don’t come with any software out of the box that reports to you the S.M.A.R.T status. Below is a list of software programs you can choose from that monitor and report to you the status of hard drive. But you should know that there is no definite set of rules on how to determine if your drive should be replaced based on the indicator that S.M.A.R.T. monitors. I am guessing that there is no definite way of determining which set of indicators should be weighed to determine if the hard drive should be replaced. There are definitely certain indicators that easily outweigh others, like Spin-Up-Time, which indicates that the motor is taking too long for it to spin up to the proper speed. If you notice that your computer is running sluggish, these pieces of software can help you determine if it’s time to replace your hard drive.

You can set CrystalDiskInfo to run at startup. It will notify you if the S.M.A.R.T. status of any drive changes. Open the “Function” menu and toggle both the “Resident” and “Startup” options on.