18 advantages and disadvantages of external hard drives (2023)

In this in-depth article, we take a look at the pros and cons of external hard drives connected via USB, eSATA or Firewire. With the advent of USB 3, all modern PCs, servers and laptops now offer a very simple interface for connecting portable storage, and as we summarize below, external hard drives are perfect for dozens of uses.

The pros and cons of external hard drives vary, but you should consider all of the following points before making your purchase. And maybe this article can help you get ideas on how to use your existing USB drives in new ways.safety chain Backup-SoftwareCustomers use external hard drives for backups and replace the tape drive with hard drives. They're a great way to save time and money; However, each technology has its advantages and disadvantages.

If you have other ideas not listed below, please feel free to do sodie Emailus to inclusion. Thank you very much! Even if you are assigned to a university, we offer yougreat discountsfor academic and non-profit organizations that purchase BackupChain backup software.sales contactFor an offer!

Advantages of external hard drives

Lowest cost per GB:There's certainly no storage cheaper than external drive storage when you consider the added benefits it offers over CD, DVD, and Blu-ray Disc burning. Yes, the material costs of the optical media are lower, but realistically the labor involved must also be taken into account. Also, optical discs are very prone to failure and don't last as long as they should (see more details here://Backupchain.com/por-que-no-debe-usar-medios-opticos-para-Backup.html)
Today in 2014, a new oneSeagateThe 4TB drive costs less than $140, which is only 3.5 cents per GB!

Space:The main disadvantage of CDs, DVDs and even Blu-rays when used for storage and backup is that they give you very little space to work. today you can buy one6TB external hard drivethat around 9,000 CDs fit into a small 3.5" drive. The life expectancy of a CD is almost three years, an archived hard drive definitely lasts longer and provides backup speeds of over 150 megabytes per second (= 9 GB per minute) .
Whenever you need additional backup storage space, just buy another USB drive. External drives can be combined with Windows Storage Spaces in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 and even structured into a pseudo-RAID, see this how-to article https://www.winhelp.us/storage-spaces-in-windows-8.html

Ease of use (disconnect):Everyone should have an external drive to back up if you don't have a centralized backup server or NAS backup device. USB and eSATA drives are very easy to move from one PC to another if needed. With plug-and-play functionality, you can plug in the drive and the system will automatically detect the partition. On the other hand, not everyone can or wants to install an indoor unit.

Portability:USB drives are portable in many ways.
Physically Portable - You can quickly move many terabytes by unplugging the drive and plugging it into a new PC or server. Imagine how long it would take to copy 6 TB over network or internet!
Cross-system portability: Different types of operating systems and PC/Mac support USB drives; Therefore, you can copy data between different operating systems simply by connecting the storage directly to it.

Easy exchange:Imagine your primary hard drive fails. No, you don't want to imagine it unless you've already had that experience. It's a mess and it takes a long time. A USB drive is replaced in a minute. Obviously, having good backups is a different story. If you don't back up your external hard drive, you'll still lose data... and end up in disaster.

You can buy many and expand as needed. To max out your server or PC to, say, 20TB, all you need to do is buy a couple of USB drives. Ideally you'd hook them up to separate USB controllers for better speed, but even on the same bus it works fine.

Speed!Speed ​​is a major benefit of portable drives. We're looking at over 150MB/s reads and writes from a single drive. If the RAIDs are in a striped layout, each drive adds 150MB. Plug four together into a RAID-enabled USB bay and watch transfer speeds hit 600MB/s!
Data backup to CD and DVD is more like a tortoise speed compared to a modern USB3 external hard drive. You can rip an entire music CD in just a few seconds. By backing up your primary hard drive, it means you'll finish faster; less downtime; fewer complaints; wait less; and therefore potentially more frequent backups!

External hard disk storage can be combined.External hard drives are compatible with Windows Storage Spaces, a new technology included in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Some speculate that it is a viable alternative to RAIDhttp://betanews.com/2014/01/15/windows-storage-spaces-and-refs-is-it-time-to-ditch-raid-for-good/

simple rotation: For backup and storage, you can easily implement rotation with USB hard drives. The backup rotation scheme (cf//backupchain.com/Backup-Rotation-Scheme.html) is a popular and cost-effective strategy for reliable backup with no single point of failure. Place one drive in a vault and plug in the other.Backup-Softwaredo your thing at night In the morning, unplug and swap drives. Do you want to make it perfect? Use a third drive and keep it at home away from the office. No setup required, just plug and unplug, add and remove as needed!

Isolation:USB drives are really impressive in many ways. Another big plus is the insulation. USB drives can be detached and stored in a safe, completely isolating them from the PC or server. When a virus or power surge destroys your computer, the drive is healthy and ready for a recovery operation. Many users keep their USB drive plugged in all the time, but if you don't use a backup rotation scheme, it's a mistake. The device is exposed to dangers from wear and tear, vibrations, viruses and overvoltages. When stored in the vault, it is fully insulated against even light flooding. A famous guy once said, "Only the paranoid survive". If your data is really important, you won't be paranoid about the idea of ​​isolating drives.

Unlike NAS, external hard drives can be used and formatted like an internal drive:This is another great benefit. Yes, you can use network servers andNAS backupdevices and access data from a central source over the network. However, in a single-user environment, it is much more convenient to use an external drive. First, it's much easier to use than a hammock. Second, the network has latency and speed issues, and it also requires management and maintenance.

Summary of all advantages:

External hard drives are perfect backup storage media and are a great alternative to tape, CD, and DVD backups.tape backupis rapidly losing ground to external hard drive backups. This is simply for the reasons listed above, including cost and ease of use. Many of the disadvantages of tape backup have been eliminated by using external USB drives; However, each technology has its advantages and disadvantages. External hard drives are the perfect storage medium for many SMEsVirtual machine backups.

Disadvantages of external hard drives

Speed:Speed ​​is actually one of the main advantages listed above as a pro, not a disadvantage, but there is more to be said. Especially when there are many drives on the same USB bus, data transfer speeds degrade because the bus is shared. Ethernet has exactly the same problem. It's cheap, and as you connect more PCs to the same bus, the likelihood of packet collisions increases rapidly, which in turn slows down the overall connection for everyone. If speed is very important, consider using eSATA or an internal drive. Software RAID might also be a good solution if you don't want to invest in expensive RAID controllers. But for most users, external hard drives are very fast, more than enough.
External hard drives can easily break: This is a big disadvantage. You can easily damage the external drive if you drop it. Electrostatic discharge is another common winter problem. To see//backupchain.com/16-coisas-que-destroem-seus-arquivos-e-seu-computador.html
Unfortunately, the drive isn't protected by a rugged case like your PC, so extra care is needed.
In the early 1990's we had 40MB hard drives that required a manual "park" command to move the hard drive heads to a safe corner so they wouldn't hit the platters during shipping. Fortunately, with modern drives this is no longer a problem. However, the risks of head crash and magnetic interference remain.

excessive heating: Internal drives are generally installed to allow adequate cooling from the case fans. Overheating can be an issue with some external USB hard drives. In summer and under heavy use, hard drives can heat up to around 50 degrees C or even more. You should choose a device with a good passive cooler design and keep it away from the sun and other heat sources, preferably with good ventilation.

same RAID🇧🇷 Normally, mirroring or RAID striping is not provided on a USB drive, but some enclosures and controllers have this feature built-in. Windows software RAID does not support USB drives, but Windows Storage Spaces does. Another solution is to buy a NAS backup device and use it over USB3.

robot: Corporate customers are generally very reluctant to use external hard drives. The potential for theft is very real as these small units are very easy to steal and hide. At lunch, a co-worker might take you for a ride, or a disgruntled employee might copy all your customer databases onto a drive and take them away before you leave work. therefore the unit itself can be stolen or become an aid to a thief. These are real questions and potentials to think about as a business owner.

External cabling and power supplies required (for 3.5" drives): Suppose you have 3 or 4 external drives on your desktop and each one needs a USB cable and a power cord. Now you have a problem: Too many cables on your desk and your uninterruptible power supply, also called battery backup, doesn't have enough outlets! And many users will complain that their desktop looks "unprofessional" with all those cables; Sure, it's not the cleanest way, and it's certainly not CEO-friendly. Also, you need more outlets, even if you're not a CEO.

Accidental Interruption.The more USB devices you have, the more likely you are to unplug the wrong one at the wrong time. Luckily, Windows uses a short timeout to free up writes to the external hard drive quickly, so you won't lose as much information if you accidentally unplug the drive. But if you have some important data on the drive, unplugging it at the wrong time may corrupt it.
Accidental disconnection also occurs when the computer is powered by a battery backup device and the external hard drive is not. Short, imperceptible power outages happen all the time and are long enough to damage and even destroy your USB drive. At the very least, the power failure will cut the PC's connection to the external hard drive and cause an error that may even corrupt the data file.
So use a battery backup device for your external hard drives too, and once it's on, you can't touch that!

Boot Windows from an external hard drive:The last disadvantage of external hard drives is that you cannot boot Windows from them. Some "hackers" have found ways to do this, but it's not generally recommended, nor will you be happy with the performance. We've seen people boot and work on virtual machines from USB disks. This seems to work well and gives employees the option to take the virtual machine home if needed.

What about backups and backup software for external hard drives?

External hard drives are almost perfect for backups, but if you really do store your work on an external hard drive, you should back it up, too. When connected to a USB3 or eSATA interface, the transfer speeds are similar to an internal drive, allowing you to run the backup process frequently without wasting too much time. However, many users forget to back up their work because they don't use automatic backup tools. If you use professional backup software such assafety chain, not only does it come with a task scheduler so you don't have to remember to run your backups, it also uses the registry to keep track of every file backup in case something goes wrong.

When using external hard drives for backup purposes, there are several things you need to be aware of, as some drives can interrupt file transfers intermittently: use a good quality cable (same goes for internal drives) and a good quality USB hub if needed. 🇬🇧 Some USB controllers also become unstable under heavy load, so if you encounter connection problems on the hard drive, it is possible that you will have to change one item at a time to find out the cause of the problem.

manufacturer list

I follow

Intel SSD drives

CMS desktop disks

maxtor

IBM storage systems

IOGEAR

Toshiba

Olixir

Hitachi

Portable HD Kangaroo

Apricom Portable External Hard Drives

LaCie

Imitation

Samsung

SimpleTech

buffalo

Fujitsu hard drives

PS

Digital West

Seagate

see also

8 Pros and Cons of Hyper-V Backup with External USB Drives

External hard drive backup software for power users: BackupChain®