External Hard Drive Saved Me

[DisneyDayTripper]

So a couple of years ago I bought an external hard-drive and a few months ago started having my computer automatically back itself up because we have a ton of pictures and videos that I don't want to lose. Well just the other day my computer went crazy and I had to reformat it and I would have lost EVERYTHING if it weren't for that little external hard-drive. If you don't have one...GET ONE! If I would have lost those pictures I would have been soooo upset. I'm sure others of you have experienced something similar.

 

[agnes!]

That's why I have an Apple Time Capsule, which is a WI-Fi and a hard-drive back up. Does everything automatically, I don't have to think about it .

agnes!

 

[Chicago526]

I have one, all my pics are stored there. I don't keep any pics on my computer. I also back up financial files and other important docs. It's a great thing to have, and they aren't that pricey either.

 

[DVCLiz]

Can someone explain simply how these work? Is it a plug and play kind of thing? I know I need to do this but I have no idea what to buy, which brand, how big, etc.

 

[sbell111]

Can someone explain simply how these work? Is it a plug and play kind of thing? I know I need to do this but I have no idea what to buy, which brand, how big, etc.

Mostly, they are just a USB hard drive. You plug it in and the computer simply sees it as another drive. Through the use of software, you can set them up to be automated back-ups of your data.

I have a 1TB drive attached to my primary home computer. I keep all pics, audio, and video on the drive, but I have yet to set up a back-up plan for them. I will likely buy a second drive and mirror it to the first.

These drives are really getting inexpensive. I noticed that Target has an HP 1TB external drive on sale right now for $109.99.

 

[DisneyDayTripper]

These drives are really getting inexpensive. I noticed that Target has an HP 1TB external drive on sale right now for $109.99.

They're now inexpensive...I bought a 100GB for $100 a couple years ago and was at Walmart today and saw a 350GB one for $79 lol and they had a 1.5TB and 1TB for 100 something

 

[golfgal]

So if you get one of these and you save your photos, etc. on them it takes them off your hard drive? Does that speed up your computer then? I have my photo files set for my screen saver, could I still have that if I move those files to the hard drive? Our main computer is getting older and I would like to do something just in case.

 

[Silent1CB]

We have a Western Digital 1 terabyte external harddrive. It came with Memeo backup software, so we use that. It does it automatically, immediately when you change or add a file.

In addition to all photos, music, video, documents, spreadsheets, we have all data saved from any programs we use. Also, have the actual backup software & setup files for other programs saved to the harddrive. Everything needed to put computer back as it was after installing operating system and programs.

 

[manning]

I have one, all my pics are stored there. I don't keep any pics on my computer. I also back up financial files and other important docs. It's a great thing to have, and they aren't that pricey either.

Think about a second backup. You don't know when that one will fail. I didn't say if.

I backup to an external and DVD. I had an external fail on me.

 

[My2Cinderellas]

Think about a second backup. You don't know when that one will fail. I didn't say if.

I backup to an external and DVD. I had an external fail on me.

We had an external drive fail also. We lost almost everything I had ripped to iTunes. It took a couple months to re-rip everything. There were only a few files lost. This is why I still buy CDs when possible.

We back up pics on DVDs and an external drive.

There are also subscription hosting sites for backups. These come in handy if the computer is damaged in a fire or natural disaster. Most people store the backup external drive right next to the computer. For really important stuff make a copy and store inyour bank box.

 

[manning]

I also had an internal hard drive fail on a computer that was a month old.