Portable hard drives

Computer Help and Discussions Hardware
1

Would you use a portable hard drive such as a Seagate or Western Digital, 1TB or larger, as a secondary hard drive which would be left plugged in on a 24/7 basis? USB, of course.

My prior desktop, which is a two-hard-drive tower and I could have up and running in minutes, was used as installing programs-only on C:\ and documents/downloads created on D:\. It was easy to backup the C: drive in case of disaster, i.e., hard drive failure, and backing up the D: drive was much easier also in case of disaster.

It's not that I don't back up the two folders I use all the time religiously (Documents and Downloads) but I just always thought a two-drive system was much safer.

What are your thoughts? Thanks.

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I use an internal secondary hard disk. For backups only across multiple computers I use a 2TB external USB hard disk.

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On 16.3.2018 at 13:20, chansu said: 
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		Would you use a portable hard drive such as a Seagate or Western Digital, 1TB or larger, as a secondary hard drive which would be left plugged in on a 24/7 basis?  USB, of course.
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no.

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On 16.3.2018 at 13:20, chansu said: 
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		I just always thought a two-drive system was much safer.
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yes of course. i use in private only 1 hd with partitions in one pc and secure my files on usb-stick. this files dont need an external hd with 1 tb or similar capacity

5

Thanks to all who replied. What I ended up doing was getting an external desktop 4TB where all Documents/Downloads now live, and use external portable hard drives for system backups and file backups. My mini-tower desktop would not support an secondary internal drive, so there really was no choice but to go the external desktop drive route, and it's going to work out fine. In essence, C:\ is now like I had before with a full-size tower, i.e., installed programs only and OS.

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I think external hard disks are the way to go for backups, and as long as you have at least a USB 3.0 interface they can be rather fast.

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		gemäß USB-2.0-Spezifikationen bei 5 Volt Spannung maximal 500 mA Strom verbraucht. Anderenfalls reicht die USB-Buchse zur Energieversorgung nicht aus und es kommt zu einer Überlastung.
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		Bei USB 3.0 dürfen angeschlossene Geräte bis zu 900 mA beziehen
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		according to USB 2.0 specifications, consumes a maximum of 500 mA at 5 volts. Otherwise, the USB socket for the power supply is insufficient and there is an overload.
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		For USB 3.0, connected devices may draw up to 900 mA
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