An external hard disk drive is a type of hard disk drive which is externally connected to a computer. It is a storage device that offers the possibility of a readily transportable repository for all of a user’s valuable data.

Alternatively they can provide a destination for a user to backup their valued files too, in case the data held on their internal storage is lost, or the internal storage fails.

New on the block, is the multimedia external hard disk adaptive on all operating systems, MS Windows and Mac OS 9.x and above.

This allows you to easily play stored movies or music and view digital photos directly on your home television or while travelling.

It produces high quality video and audio, with fast USB transfer speeds and plug-and-play with a remote control option. Videos are played with a three TV colour system formats; PAL/NTSC/AUTO.

Some have a free wireless local area network (WLAN) linking of two or more computers network. They have also trailing power and/or data cables that only too easily serve to pull them over, drag them off desks or otherwise expose them to further risk.

However, despite the above features and its advantages of being carried from place to place, an external hard disk can get dropped, knocked, crushed and subject to all manner of abuse and trauma.

This is contrary to the internal hard drive in your PC, which is held securely in a rarely moved case. Additional, external drives seldom have cooling fans and, in an effort to make them as small as possible, the hard drive inside rarely has much free air space around it.

In a sum up therefore, an external drive is an excellent destination for backing up files, but this only truly safeguards your data if the files are initially saved to an internal drive and then backed up to the external.

If the external becomes the default place for files to be saved on, the data is not being backed up. It is simply being saved to a destination where it is more likely to be lost.

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