There are so many different types of external storage devices, known as external hard drives, pen drives or flash drives, that choosing the right one for your needs may be overwhelming. Knowing a few key points about them will make your decision the right one.
An external hard drive is a device that can plug into your computer via a USB port and information can be saved in it, just like you would save files on your computer. The device can then be unplugged from your computer and stored away, or taken with you and plugged into another computer where the information you saved on it can be accessed again. External hard drives are also very useful for keeping a copy of your files on as a backup.
First decide what you will use your hard drive for. There are small pen drives that can easily fit in your pocket that will store from 2GB up to as much as 128GB. To give you an idea, the storage capacity of a laptop is usually 500GB. The small pen drives are great for keeping information with you, or for transferring information from computer to computer.
If you want to use an external device to back up the photos and other files on your computer, then you need to purchase an external hard drive with as much, if not, more storage capacity than your computer. If you want to back up multiple computers, you will need to add up the capacity of each computer.
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To see your computers storage capacity, open a folder and click the “This PC” button. It will display your hard drive information showing total free space and the size of the hard drive, measured in GB. These days, you can purchase external hard drives with a 1TB capacity or more. 1TB is equivalent to 1000GB.
For added security, look for an external storage devices which includes encryption software. Once set up, the pen drive can only be accessed by keying in a password each time it’s used. This will protect your information if your pen drive is stolen, but keep in mind that unless you have a copy of your information stored somewhere else, you will have no way to recover it once your pen drive is gone.
