This Guest post is Contributed by Steve from Phoenix Janitorial Services, He is an Data Center Cleaning Phoenix and  Phoenix Office Cleaning

Maintaining your data centre is of key importance, especially if you keep a lot of your work and important documents in your computer.  Unfortunately, there are so many enemies to data centres lurking about, what with the viruses on the Internet and the various hardware malfunctions that may occur to a computer system.  It is thus your responsibility to monitor your unit and prevent anything malign from touching it.  To that end, there are certain things you can do as parts of a regular routine of precaution and preservation.

First of all, you should get a good antivirus for your computer.  Antivirus programs are absolutely indispensable because they can severely limit the degree of virus exposure your system has.  Whether you select a free or paid option, be sure that you update the definitions regularly to ensure higher security for your computer.

An additional measure to take, especially with older versions of Windows and other operating software, would be to create a separate user account for your Internet surfing.  Most viruses are accessed through the Internet, so it is best not to access the Internet from the Administrators account on your computer.  This is the primary account, which means damage dealt to it is far more worrisome than damage dealt to any other account on your system.  Use a separate account without administrator privileges when surfing the web to restrict system vulnerability.

In terms of hardware care, you should never expose your computer to sharp temperature fluctuations as well as temperature extremes.  The developments in technology notwithstanding, computers are still delicate machines, and sharp knocks, rapid changes in temperature, and varying types of physical strain may very well destroy them.  On the whole, you should also avoid keeping anything magnetic near your computer.  Computer hard drives are adversely affected by magnetic fields.

You should also keep your computer covered when you are in a dusty environment.  Dust is one of the biggest enemies of computer systems, and is in fact why a lot of CPUs from PCs end up having performance issues after a long stage of disuse: the dust accumulation in the CPUs internal parts often occurs when owners do not use a computer for a long time (thus depriving it of the dust-sweeping benefits of the computer fan) and forget to seal it in a cover.

These are just a few of the things a conscientious computer owner should do to protect his data system.  Remember that you can never to be careful with the box that stores so much of your life and work in it: in fact, you may want to backup that box by purchasing a portable (external) HDD and copying your most important material onto that.