Quote - A tech was at our business trying to restore a crashed pc(physical damage as in harddrive) and suggested "spring cleaning" to restore performance.  What he means is to reinstall the os about once every 6 mos or so.  Still, there is the chore of reconfiguring networks, reinstall of some programs, settings and stuff not to mention os service packs.

One tip I can give is to do a fresh install of your OS, then install all the software you wish to use. afterwards do a complete image backup using something like acronis to make a image of your fresh install. Then when it comes to re-installing everything use the image. Hey presto! all the software is also installed too. Save a lot of time.

Oh and for people who use external drives, turn them off when not in use. The exceedingly high temps and constant running of external drives (MS windows turns off idle internal drives after a set amount of time) can cut their lifespan into a quarter of its normal.