3 Uses for an External Hard Drive



Posted: Sunday, June 25, 2006

by
the Tech Boy

An external hard drive is a hard disk drive (much like the one in your computer) that is placed externally, outside of the case. You can buy them pre-made, or purchase a hard drive and an enclosure, and make your own. They came in many sizes, are relatively inexpensive, and are well suited to perform various functions. In this article, I will detail 3 specific uses for your external hard drive.

For one reason or another, you may have chosen a computer whose storage capacity you've outgrown. It may be full to capacity with files and programs, and you need room to expand. So the first example is to use your external hard drive to add expandability to your computer. This is true in case all of your PC's hard drive bays are full, and especially if you have a laptop which has only one hard drive bay.

A second example is to use your external hard drive as a shared storage drive. You can attach it to a PC, set permissions and share-ability, and start saving, and sharing various files. For example, you can share and save pictures, MP3s, and video files. By using it in this manner, you'll be able to free up tons of space on your computer's local hard drive, and you'll be able to share files with everyone in your home network.

Another possible use for your external hard drive is to save important documents. For example, you can scan wills, deeds, insurance information, leases, bank account and credit information, and store them on your external hard drive. You can also take pictures of all your valuables, and keep these safe in your external hard drive for future reference. If it's important to you, then it's worthy of being saved in your external hard drive. You can then store this hard drive in a secure location such as a fire-proof safe, or a safety deposit box. This will surely save you tons of headaches in case of theft, or worse yet, a disaster.

There you have it. That's 3 possible uses for your external hard drive. They're versatile, and come in sizes that you can choose according to your specific needs. If you have a lot of files to save, then you can get a 500 GB hard drive, or larger if you wish. If you only have a few important documents to save, then maybe a 15 GB hard drive will suffice. The important thing is that it is you who can choose the size you need. It is you who can choose what its primary function will be. And if you need to, you can get more than one external hard drive. That's what makes them so ideal.


Copyright 2006 Erick Charles

--------

Erick Charles works in the IT field. He is eager to share his computer expertise with others and has created a website to help even non-techies understand their computers better. Visit http://thetechboy.com for more information.
This Article has been viewed 8,374 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)
» left by Barbara
from Canton, TX 5 years 195 days ago.
Can an External HDD be used for DVR live data capture? I need something for digital recording that is reliable and hard for a crimal to locate and steal or destroy. I thought if I hid an HDD in another location... that would give the insurance companies evidence... what do you suggest?
» left by Anonymous
 1 year 195 days ago.
This was a very helpful article and is written in plain ordinary language so young and elderly people can understand. Thankyou
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.