I am a poor hobbyist photographer. That means I have an old slow computer, not much money to spend on more drive space, etc, and use a bridge superzoom camera instead of one that would cost more than my car. (at least until recently that Wifey started working again which is why I'm here and can afford our first vacation ever as a family.)
I have thousands and thousands of photographs along with e-books and programs for photography. They were stored on a 2nd hard drive (80 gig) that I pulled from an older computer from years ago. That 80 gig was nearly full with photography stuff as well as my 200 gig main drive nearly full. I flight sim as well and my photography stuff is about 60 gigs and the flight sim stuff is about 60 gigs as well. I've been wanting to get a new larger drive, but never had the funds.
One day, I couldn't access my photos on the 2nd drive. Uh oh! I rapidly started cleaning off the main drive so that I could get enough space at least to save the photos if the drive completely stopped working. I did get most of the photos moved, most of the important ones, when Wifey was using the computer one night. She came upstairs to tell me the computer was continously rebooting and rebooting and could not get to Windows.
It was some kind of virus. I searched and the only thing I could come up with was to restore Windows. Problem is, it is a Compaq and the only option you have is a complete destructive restore where it formats the drive. So, I had a drive I couldn't access and was going bad and an operating system I couldn't boot up to. I was about to lose everything (stupid me for not backing up, but the funds wasn't there to spend the money.)
Wifey had just started working again, so I was able to scrape up the funds for a new 2nd drive. I wanted internal (because of price.) Low and behold, I could not find in a store and IDE hard drive as everything is now SATA (in store because I wanted it now, not a week from now.) I found out I could download and install a version of Linux on CD and boot from the CD so I had an operating system. I just needed a new drive and low and behold,
Walmart had a Seagate external USB 500 gig drive for the same price as the 500 gig internal drive I wanted. I was able to boot the Linux from CD and access the main C: drive to move files from the internal to the external drive. I saved all my photos.
Long story short, I absolutely love the external drive. I have a desktop at home and have a laptop at work that I occasionally bring home. I also have another desktop at another work area that I use that controls my equipment at work. I can use the external drive on any computer I want. I can take it to my mother's house to show photos of the grandkids. I can bring my laptop home and sit in the living room and do photography stuff or go downstairs where the desktop is to work. I can take it to work and use it in my office or take it to my work equipment area and use it on that computer. Any where I want. I would say, definitely get an external hard drive and use that to hold any and every data file you have.
Can't recommend any particular drive as I've only ever used my Seagate. But I do love it. Don't know if it is more or less robust than others, but it feels solidly built. As long as you don't bang it around more than you would a laptop, I think any of them would be a good choice.
As for the computer being slow, mine was extremely slow as well. The drive was completely full, but that wasn't the problem. I am in the mind that you should do a total format and reinstall of the Windows operating system once a year. I never did though, because I had too much data stuff and not enough 2nd drive space to move it to. Since I got the external drive and put all data files on it, all I have is operating system and program installs on the main drive. After the format and reinstall, my computer is screaming fast compared to what it was (note, it is still a 5 year old computer, so it's not all
that screaming fast....)
