External Hard Drive

External Hard Drive

Simply explained, a hard drive holds data. All computers need a minimum of one hard drive to store the operating system, programs, and other key information.

The hard drive is usually built directly into the computer. That’s called an internal hard drive. As technology evolves external hard drives have become more common.

An external hard drive generally adds on to the storage space of the internal drive. They’re also useful for someone that wants to put sensitive information on their hard drive. The user can unplug the external drive at any time and keep their information protected.

External hard drives are located on the outside of the computer tower. It’s portable, but still larger than the internal hard drive. Some of them include cooling fans so that there’s no unnecessary heat surrounding a computer system. The external drive connects to the computer with a cable. Data can transferred between the two entities until the external hard drive is disconnected. The information stored on the external drive can be accessed when it’s plugged back into the computer.

When people browse the web, they are targets for security threats like viruses and spyware. With the improvements in technology and hacking software, it’s becoming difficult to protect a computer even with the use of antivirus programs and firewalls. Aside from online threats, home computers are often used by multiple people, especially families. This puts data at a higher risk. Also, the more people using a computer, the faster the storage space fills up. That’s where external hard drives come in handy.

External hard drives help users backup the information stored on an internal hard drive. If a computer crashes, gets corrupted, or damaged, then many files and information can become lost. If someone has everything backed up on the external, then they will know that everything is safe. Every kind of file and document can be stored on these drives like music files, movies, pictures, and important documents. External drives still only have a certain amount of space available, so it could fill up fast depending on how many files a person wants to backup.

One of the best things about an external drive is that it’s portable. It can be stored anywhere and can be plugged in and out of a computer at any time. Compatible computers will easily recognize it as a storage device and all files from it can be accessed.

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