Much as the name implies, preventive maintenance, often abbreviated PM, refers to performing proactive maintenance in order to prevent system problems. This is contrasted to diagnostic or corrective maintenance, which is performed to correct an already-existing problem.

Determining whent to Perform System Maintenance | Importance of Preventive Maintenance | Premier Computer Care & Preventive Maintenance

IMPORTANCE OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

Preventive maintenance is one of the most ignored aspects of PC ownership. Most people seem to think that the PC doesn't need preventive maintenance, and so you should just use it until it breaks, and then repair or replace it. These people generally find themselves repairing or replacing much sooner than those that take definite steps to avoid difficulties in the first place.

Here are some reasons why you should develop a preventive maintenance plan for your PC:

• Preventive Maintenance Saves Money: I'm sure we've all heard the old adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". It's trite, but it is also true. Avoiding problems with your PC will save you money in the long run, compared with laying out cash for new components or repair jobs.
• Preventive Maintenance Saves Time: Saves time? How can taking two hours a month or whatever to perform maintenance save time? Simple: because it saves you the much bigger hassles of dealing with system failures and data loss. Most preventive maintenance procedures are quite simple compared to troubleshooting and repair procedures--now those can really eat up your time at a fantastic rate.
• Preventive Maintenance Helps Safeguard Your Data: For most people, the data on the hard disk is more important than the hardware that houses it. Taking steps to protect this data therefore makes sense, and that is what PM is all about.
• Preventive Maintenance Improves Performance: Some parts of your system will actually degrade in performance over time, and preventive maintenance will help to improve the speed of your system in these respects.

DETERMINING WHEN TO PERFORM MAINTENANCE

Some types of preventive maintenance need to be performed more often than others. The frequency of preventive maintenance depends on the nature of the activity; some things just need to be addressed more often than others. It also depends a lot on what your PC is being used for.

The interval for preventive maintenance on PCs can be determined based on elapsed time or on usage metrics. This is similar to how your car's oil and filter should be changed "every 3 months or 3,000 miles, whichever comes first". PC maintenance activities are usually specified as time-based, because this is easier (a PC has no odometer) but they should be performed more frequently depending on prevailing conditions. A PC used on the manufacturing floor of a steel mill needs to be cleaned more often than one being used in a hospital. A disk that is doing heavy Internet file transfers needs virus checking much more often than one that is used standalone and has no modem or floppy disk.

PREMIER COMPUTER CARE AND PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

Premier Computer care will come to your home or place of business and after consultation with you, we will write up a detailed, customized plan for the maintenance of all your systems.