The Benefits of a Network External Hard Drive

Because of the Internet, file-sharing has become easy, resulting in the vast popularity of videos, music, software and other downloadable materials from many different websites. The Internet has provided a lot of advantages, but has also often resulted in computer disasters when a virus, a Trojan or spyware software has attacked a personal computer.

By utilizing a network external hard drive for backups to secure your data and files on your personal computer you protect yourself against all of your information being corrupted and gone forever. Another reason why you need to get an external disk drive is to lessen the clogging up of your PC with so many files stored on it, which can eventually result in slower performance.

External Hard Drive

Adding more storage for your files not only makes your data secure for accidental erasures (if you back it up!), but it also provides you with an extra area for more important files to be stored centrally for easy reference and backups.

Besides serving as an add-on storage device, a network drive can be used to keep copies of your important documents, such as legal and personal documents, in a separate area to avoid being affected by a computer crash and from the dangerous eyes of potential hackers on your system.

Small portable external hard drives come in different small sizes and capacities that will suit your specific needs. Ranging from 100 gb to 500 gb in size for drive space allocations, this smaller media storage devices have been a popular choice for personal desktop computer owners and small business.

Most external hard disks are compliant with the USB 2.0 interface as found today in most PCs and Macs. But more recently other option connections are available, such as Firewire, Ethernet or eSata. If these are supported then you are offered more reliable connections and higher data transfer rates compared to standard USB.

However the new network external hard drive models have much larger capacities from a minimum of 1 Tb (terabyte) up to a maximum of 8 terabytes. This is an enormous amount of storage space and the larger capacities are physically bigger as well, which means they are not really small and portable, but they are excellent as a network drive on your home wifi system and can be shred by your families laptops or other computers.

With an Ethernet connection, your network external hard drive can even be used in a network-attached storage (NAS) system, where you can share files in your home network or access your files over the internet.

Today there are many different kinds and models of external hard drives designed for specific purposes and uses. Cheaper brands with lesser storage capacity are ideal for back-up of important files, and even the whole computer system as a protection in case of a computer crash. And everyone should have one of these (and use it!) as a minimum.

Usually, this type of portable external disk is bundled with a free software back-up utility for a user friendly back up plan that can be done in an instant. Since this type of external media device is plug'n'play compatible you won't have to be a techie to do a regular back-up of your computer files. No excuse now then!

There are also several configurations in many of these portable drives, where most are using the USB connection for power, while in others there is a requirement for an external AC power source.

Other features of a network external hard drive often include password protection and data encryption to give these much higher capacity drives more privacy protection. So whatever you buy whether just a small portable or huge NAS external drive just ensure you make the most of it and don't forget to do those backups!

The Benefits of a Network External Hard Drive

Recommend : feed