There are many reasons that people decide on buying an external hard drive, it could be to create extra file storage space, to transfer large files between computers or as a back up device.
An external storage device can be used for all of these purposes but you need to make sure you are buying a device that has enough storage space.
The reason most people choose an external drive is that it has the benefits of being portable and you do not have to take your computer apart as you would with an internal drive.
This means that your data can be safely and easily stored on a device that can then either be kept on your desktop or for the purposes of safe back ups placed in an alternate location away from the computer.
There's no point in backing up your precious data if there is a risk of the back up drive being stolen or fried in a fire along with your computer.
So the big decision is exactly how much storage space do you need on an external drive? Generally in the UK you can get portable external hard drives with a storage capacity of up to 2TB, which is about 2000GB give or take.
You can buy drives as small as 20 or 40GB but at this price point it makes sense to invest in at least a 250GB device as the cost for smaller drives does not make much of a cost saving.
So before deciding how much capacity you need which is usually measured in GB (gigabytes) you need to look at the storage capacity of your computer.
If you just want to backup or copy files from your computer then a good rule of thumb is to buy an external drive the same or greater capacity as your computer.
You may think that this is overkill as you would never use all the available space.
With many buying decisions many people look at price and decide that they can save a few pounds by getting a smaller capacity drive.
Whilst this may be a saving in the short term what tends to happen is that down the line you find that your external drive no longer has enough space to backup your data.
At this point you would then need to spend even more than you originally did to buy a new larger capacity device.
You will need to replace the old drive rather than adding a new drive to your system as it will not be easy to set up a system to do automated backups to two separate drives.
So if you have a computer with 500GB of storage you should buy an external drive with at least that amount.
You may even want a larger device as in the future you may wish to archive some of your data so that it can be removed from the computer and be stored on your external drive but also continue to use it to do backups.
An external storage device can be used for all of these purposes but you need to make sure you are buying a device that has enough storage space.
The reason most people choose an external drive is that it has the benefits of being portable and you do not have to take your computer apart as you would with an internal drive.
This means that your data can be safely and easily stored on a device that can then either be kept on your desktop or for the purposes of safe back ups placed in an alternate location away from the computer.
There's no point in backing up your precious data if there is a risk of the back up drive being stolen or fried in a fire along with your computer.
So the big decision is exactly how much storage space do you need on an external drive? Generally in the UK you can get portable external hard drives with a storage capacity of up to 2TB, which is about 2000GB give or take.
You can buy drives as small as 20 or 40GB but at this price point it makes sense to invest in at least a 250GB device as the cost for smaller drives does not make much of a cost saving.
So before deciding how much capacity you need which is usually measured in GB (gigabytes) you need to look at the storage capacity of your computer.
If you just want to backup or copy files from your computer then a good rule of thumb is to buy an external drive the same or greater capacity as your computer.
You may think that this is overkill as you would never use all the available space.
With many buying decisions many people look at price and decide that they can save a few pounds by getting a smaller capacity drive.
Whilst this may be a saving in the short term what tends to happen is that down the line you find that your external drive no longer has enough space to backup your data.
At this point you would then need to spend even more than you originally did to buy a new larger capacity device.
You will need to replace the old drive rather than adding a new drive to your system as it will not be easy to set up a system to do automated backups to two separate drives.
So if you have a computer with 500GB of storage you should buy an external drive with at least that amount.
You may even want a larger device as in the future you may wish to archive some of your data so that it can be removed from the computer and be stored on your external drive but also continue to use it to do backups.
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