Nowadays, you would probably choose to buy a SSD rather than choosing a 'normal' hard drive with rotating reading heads. But IF you buy a normal hard drive (typically S-ATA), there is one thing you should always do when you begin using the hard drive...
You have the option to format a new hard drive using either a Full Format or a Quick Format. You can read this article on Chron to see I am not the only one to recommend you do a Full Format the first time.
Here's Why I Recommend a Full Format
In June of 2019 I bought an external Maxtor 1Tb drive for backup purposes. I could see that the Properties function told me it was in the FAT-format when I had acquired it, and I used the Quick Format option to start up the drive in the NTFS-format.
Recently I started having minor problems with this drive - and therefore I had to do a bit of repairs to ensure I didn't begin to get data loss issues. I decided I had to write an article about it, so you could avoid running into similar problems, if you had started up the same way.
Originally, hard drives were not formatted to begin with - and that might be a good thing for users today to consider also. A Full Format does a check for bad sectors, and these are marked so your operating system doesn't use these areas. When buying a hard drive with a capacity of 1, 2 or even 4 Tb, you can easily survive losing 1Gb - and in most cases bad sectors would only be in the megabytes range. :-)
Be Mindful that External Drives Are Often Transported
Don't ever transport your drives with the cable still mounted. Take out the USB-cable from the drive while it is transported. The USB receiving end in your drive is quite unstable if your cable rocks it too much during transport in a bag with other items present, so you would rather avoid this, as you otherwise risk having to buy a new cabinet for your drive...
I hope you find this article helpful, and please remember you are welcome to leave a comment if you have any question to any of my advice given on this blog.
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