External Hard Drives are devices that connect to your laptop or computer via USB or Firewire with their primary function being to store data and files. While some people wrongly assume they are a tool merely for a business professional, there are in fact a number or reasons why everyone should consider investing in one.
Larger Storage Capacities
External Hard Drives come with huge amounts of storage space, making them ideal for people who tend to accumulate a lot of videos or images, not just those who use them to store work related files. In comparison to the space often included in internal flash drives, you will generally get a lot more from a good quality external drive.
Portability
Due to their increasing popularity, external Hard Drives now come in a huge range of sizes, both physically and in terms of capacity. In almost all cases, they are small and lightweight, making them very portable and a lot more practical for transferring, sharing or moving data than lugging around a heavy laptop or desktop computer.
Ease of use
Hard Drives are recognised and supported on all Windows and Apple computer devices, connecting immediately without the need to install drivers or sit through long loading times. By hooking up the drive, you essentially just immediately increase your data capacity without the need to upgrade your computer, saving you both time and money. Those with Firewire connections in particular are also able to operate at high speeds, meaning large amounts of files can be transferred very quickly and efficiently.
Freeing up Space
The more you have stored on your computer, the slower everything generally becomes as the system literally becomes weighed down by trying to support too much at once. By transferring old files that you perhaps don’t require as often (but don’t want to part with) onto an external drive, you can free up some extra space on your main unit to either increase performance level or at the very least to make way for new data you may require in the future.
Organisation
Particularly if a computer is shared by several users, files can accidentally get moved around or lost among the masses. By having everything neatly organised and stored on an external drive, you can know where everything is should you need it, without having to trawl through endless folders on your computer trying to find them.
Peace of mind
Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a video enthusiast or photography lover more than the thought of losing their entire collection of files that they have built up over years. Entire memories can be erased at the click of a button if your computer becomes infected with a file targeting virus or if the system sustains some kind of physical damage. Particularly as they age, devices become increasingly susceptible to problems and the small amount of money required to invest in an external Hard Drive is more than justified by the peace of mind in knowing that your data is safely backed up should anything bad ever happen. Developers have been working for years to make further improvements to the durability of hard drives to the point of making some of them virtually indestructible, meaning that having a back-up drive is a much safer option than relying on your computer’s initial drive alone.