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Hardware systems are the backbone of your IT operations. As most IT activities run round the clock, you need to routinely clean your hardware devices and conduct maintenance audits to determine the health of your IT system.
How well you maintain your hardware devices will eventually determine the overall efficiency and health of your IT system. A well laid out computer maintenance process is essential to protect your hardware from extensive wear and tear.
Cleaning your hardware systems periodically, reorganizing your storage devices, installing antivirus software, and keeping your IT devices in a well-ventilated space, are some of the best practices for computer maintenance.
Here’s our complete computer maintenance checklist which you can use to keep your IT systems in as good as new condition.
Computer maintenance checklist to keep your IT infrastructure in good shape
1. Clean your hardware equipment
You should clean your hardware equipment like keyboards, CPUs, and monitors regularly to keep them dust-free using lint-free cloth or a microfibre cloth.
Every three to six months, you should deep clean your IT system using compressed air or high-quality computer vacuum to remove the dust clogging the hardware systems.
2. Organize your wires
Wires coming from your internet modems, printers, computers, CPUs, and other devices can be easily damaged if not organized properly. You can use cable stations, wrap lengthy wires neatly before plugging them to the source, and label wires to organize your chords.
3. Keep your hardware in a well-ventilated space
Hardware equipment like servers are always up and running. If devices like these are not kept in a well-ventilated environment with proper air-conditioning, they might crash due to high temperatures resulting in huge losses. To avoid this, always ensure your IT equipment is stationed in well-aired spaces with cooling facilities.
4. Do Not allow employees to eat or drink on their desk
Drinking morning coffee while checking on updates can throw your computer maintenance out of the box if the coffee gets spilled over. Enforce a strict no food and drinks policy while on your desk to prevent such damages.
5. Free up your disk storage
Unwanted files in your storage drive will only reduce efficiency while retrieving data. Run periodic disk cleanups and delete redundant softwares, unused programs, files you longer need, cache, and recycle bin files to keep your storage uncluttered.
6. Reorganize your hard drive using defragmentation
Practices like organizing files into dedicated folders can help you access data easily while also improving the overall efficiency of your IT process.
You can also organize your HDD hard drive using defragging. In this technique, fragmented files are consolidated to improve data retrieval speed and overall efficiency of the storage drive. Defrag, Microsoft's defragment tool and Diskeeper can help you reduce fragmentation in your disk storage.
7. Move your files to the cloud
Uploading your data to the cloud will provide you with secure and flexible storage while freeing up your physical storage units. This way you can reduce the burden on your disk drives. Most importantly, moving your storage to the cloud enables anyone in your company to access data from anywhere and collaborate with the team in real-time.
8. Protect your IT systems with an anti-virus software
Security is an integral part of your computer maintenance process. You should install dependable antivirus software to guard your IT operations against cyber threats. Combine this with robust cybersecurity policies like setting strong passwords, using hidden wi-fi networks, securing cyber liability insurance, etc, and you will have a secure IT system.
9. Install all updates as soon as they are available
Updates push security patches, add new features, and improve the overall efficiency of the software. To keep your devices up-to-date and less vulnerable to cyber intrusions, update the softwares you use in your company as soon as an update is out.
Be it your hardware drivers, anti-virus software, or major security updates, download every update immediately to ensure you always use the latest and secured version of the software.
10. Backup your data
Unplanned events like power cuts, natural disasters, or cyber intrusion can damage your business critical data causing a disruption in your services. To be prepared for such situations, set an automatic backup to backup your data regularly and store your backup securely in the cloud and other locations. With a backup, you can quickly restore your business operations to normal when faced with data failures.
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No matter if you are just starting your business or wish to improve your existing IT infrastructure, our IT experts will help you find the best-suited IT tools for your business. Book a consultation call with our IT expert today!
