Reasons Why you Must Consider Getting an External Drive
Whether you are using your computer/laptop for watching movies, playing games, or finishing your work projects, it will not take too long before the hard drive is full.
What do you do if you don’t want to delete the files on your hard drive? One solution is to upload them to the cloud. But unfortunately, cloud storage isn’t unlimited, and you have to pay a lump sum every time you need more storage space.
The next best thing is getting an external drive. This will provide you with the extra space you need to store your digital content, along with the benefit of portability. Continue reading to know more.
The Meaning of an External Drive
External drives are available in different storage capacities and connect to a computer.
External hard drives are also known as portable hard drives, which connect to the outside of a laptop or computer via a USB connection. It serves as a portable storage solution.
Since most device manufacturers make their products with Windows in mind, you may want to learn how to format an external drive on your Mac. For more information, click https://setapp.com/.
Why Might You Need an External Drive?
- Quick data backup solution
You can back up all the data on your laptop or computer on an external drive.
Accidents happen all the time. For example, you may lose your essential data if you accidentally drop your laptop, spill a drink, or your device malfunctions. You might not even be able to retrieve the data. Therefore, updating the critical data and transferring it to an external drive is advantageous so you do not lose anything important.
Although you can back up most of your data via the cloud, there might be several drawbacks. For example, data caps and monthly costs.
- Safer than cloud-based services
Using an external drive ensures that your data is safely stored, and this option is much more reliable than cloud-based storage services.
When accessing your data on the cloud storage service on a public computer, you must be careful of the risks that are present. For example, different keyloggers, spyware, and malware might be running in the background. Also, your cookies and browsing history will be saved on the public computer.
In addition, there’s the risk of people shoulder surfing, and they might take a peek at your computer screen. You may even forget to log out of your account and give easy access to anybody using the public computer after you.
Since there are too many people using the web, there’s an increased risk of online hackers. If you store any data on the Internet, you are opening yourself up to cyber attackers.
Even though most cloud service providers have strong security measures, cyber attackers use sophisticated technology to hack accounts. Therefore, you must be careful before storing your data online.
- Portability and data can be accessed offline
Thanks to an external hard drive, you can increase the portability of carrying all your important data. You can access whatever you need on your computer or laptop, even when you are not online. Since the sizes of external drives have become a lot smaller than what they used to be, you won’t face any trouble carrying them with you.
You can throw the external drive inside your backpack or laptop bag and travel with it. If you don’t find a proper Wi-Fi connection during your travels, you don’t have to panic because your data is safely stored and can be accessed offline. All you need to do is connect your external drive to your computer, and that’s it.
- Quick data sharing
You cannot do that without an external drive if you need to share a massive amount of data.
Although there are other ways to share data, like cloud storage, email, or flash drives, these methods are suitable for sending and receiving a few files. However, they cannot handle gigabytes of data at once. Also, the transfer speed will be affected, and you will find it inconvenient.
Cloud storage handles large quantities of data, but the upload and download times are excruciatingly long and depend on your Internet connection.
On the other hand, external drives handle the transfer of data at lightning speed. So if you need to transfer important files from your old computer to a new one, you can use an external drive.
Even if you need to transfer data to your client or business partner, you can put it in an external drive and give it to them.
The Bottom Line
These are some reasons why you must consider getting an external drive. It will ensure that your data is safe and always accessible. Also, it will help your internal hard drive breathe so your device can perform speedily.
