Don’t Use An External Hard Drive As Your Backup Storage
While external hard drives have stood the test of time and proven to be quite useful as backup mass storage, they’re falling behind as storage solutions because there are faster and overall better alternatives currently available in the market. As technology improves and products become more affordable and readily available, only time will tell when hard drives will soon become obsolete.
What Makes Them Bad?
Of course, we won’t deny that they are still functional as mass storage, but reliability and the need for faster read and write speeds have got them beat by more modern storage solutions. Sure, using them as storage for your games, hold security camera footage, or mass amounts of data is possible, but we don’t recommend it. And apart from their very bulky build, numerous objective reasons put them behind.
- Short Lifespan: Hard drives have an average lifespan of over four years, and while that number doesn’t seem short by any means, competing products have it beat by double. Plus, there’s no telling what can happen in those four years, and if you’re running more intensive tasks, the hard drive will see a much shorter lifespan than usual.
- Numerous Points of Failure: Hard drives are fragile, which is why they are screwed onto cages when installed into a system to prevent any unnecessary movement that could damage it. Likewise, an external hard drive is at greater risk of failure because anything can happen when it’s outside. All it takes is for one unintentional fall, and you might be saying goodbye to all your stored data.
What Are Your Choices?
With all that said, lucky on our part, there are two excellent alternatives as backup mass storage solutions. And whether it’s for your personal use or handling business files and documents, both options work well and meet the needs of all intensive purposes.
#1 Get An External SSD
On the number one spot, we have the external SSD. Solid-state drives have always been referred to as the faster yet more expensive storage solution, but their prices have gone down dramatically in recent years, and nearly anyone can enjoy their speeds. What’s more, they are also available in portable options, so you don’t have to carry around that fragile mechanical hard drive any longer.
- Longer Lifespan: In terms of lifespan, an external SSD can last around ten years, which is more than double that of an external HDD. Plus, because it doesn’t run on a spinning rust drive, these storage solutions are stronger, and you won’t have to worry about losing all your data from an accidental fall. They are also more compact and smaller, which makes external SSDs easier to carry.
- Faster And Power-Efficient: Secondly, they’re just downright faster and more power-efficient because they don’t rely on moving parts to transfer data. So you won’t only be getting a better mass storage solution but a quality of life upgrade because you won’t need to wait as long as you would with an external HDD.
#2 Upload To The Cloud
Finally, if you prefer being light on your feet and are always on the go, using cloud backup services is the best storage solution possible. A tangible device doesn’t tie you down, and all you have to do is click upload, and you’re good to go. Plus, a lot of them offer unlimited storage, and all you’ll have to pay is an inexpensive annual subscription to never worry about losing your data ever again.
- Lower Risk Of Failure: Because you won’t be needing an actual device, there is a lower risk of failure from losing it, breaking it, and many more. And essentially, it has an unlimited lifespan, so as long as you pay for the services, which is a fantastic bonus.
- Ease Of Transfer And Restoration: Unlike SSDs and HDDs that rely on their read and write speeds and having them on-hand, you’re only limited by a fast and reliable internet connection. If you ever need to transfer massive data onto numerous computers or devices, cloud services streamline the process and make it easier.
Update Your Storage Solutions
Overall, you don’t want to rely on outdated storage solutions like external HDDs as your backup storage because they could potentially fail and cause you to lose so many important documents and memories. So, take it from us, and stay on the safer side of the storage lane. Update your storage solutions as soon as possible, and you won’t regret it!