Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Air Conditioners and Data Loss

by Tim Stevens on May 11, 2007 at 01:04 PM



In the next month or so, when the stinky sweat of summer sets in, don't be so quick to turn down the thermostat. According to Ben Carmichel of ESS Data Recovery, that AC unit may be killing your computer's hard drive. It has nothing to do with temperature or humidity, but rather the power spikes and brownouts that the average conditioner creates as it clicks on and off. These surges wreak havoc on the motors inside of your hard drives, causing them to fail sooner than they would otherwise and possibly corrupting or losing your data.

Backing up your data is the best protection, of course. You should also think about adding a small Uninterruptible Power Supply, which is a surge protector with a built-in battery that mellows out those power surges and brownouts. UPS maker APC has online tools that will help you find the right one for your system and ensure you hours of worry-free computing in your meat locker of a home.

From Engadget

Related Links:

Tags: Air Conditioner, AirConditioner, Backup, HDD, summernews

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular