One of the things I made sure my wife sent me in the last batch of cargo boxes was an external hard drive:
There are numerous reasons to use an external hard drive. I'll list a few:
- File storage separate from your computer.
- Run applications that are not installed, or required to be installed, on your computer.
- Complete backups of the files and data on your computer.
- Boot an alternate operating system and use it from the external hard drive.
Probably the most overlooked reason is the ability to turn it off when it's not in use. Okay, so your operating system gives you the option to turn off the internal hard drive when your computer is idle. How many people really use that option? I know I don't. When my computer is on, it's usually doing something that requires the hard drive, even if it's only disk maintenance. The only time I'm sure the internal hard drive is off is when I shut down the computer.
Why worry about it? Have you ever experienced "heat lock"? I've had two hard drives that failed because of it. One was an external hard drive and one was an internal hard drive. The drives got hot and when they cooled, they locked up. I was able to resurrect the external one temporarily by opening it up and spinning the platters with a pencil eraser. No such luck with the second one.
Turning off an external hard drive when it's not in use can make it last up to 10 times longer than an internal hard drive. Of course, you could be even more cautious and get two external hard drives — one that you use frequently and one that you use rarely — to clone from one to the other at intervals. But that's just crazy.
