I have a few external hard disks (two 1.5 TB ones - with the same data on them for redundancy and two 3 TB ones - ditto) on which I have stored lots of photographs and home movies. I want to do a ask a couple of things:
Ensure that these disks do not break too quickly. I have heard that tests have shown that disks that get used either too often or seldom break quicker than those which get moderate use. Since these disks (especially the two 1.5 TB ones, which are now full) are seldom read from and written to, since they are only used for long term storage, how do I use them more often in order to ensure they live longer?
Is there any software that I can use to check the integrity of the disks and the data on the disks?