Back Up Photos Easily with an External Hard Drive

About a year ago, my main computer began having issues.  Using some software, I could see that the hard drive was failing.  Now of course, when you’re busy, this is the last thing you have time to worry about.

With the thousands of pictures, videos, music files, and documents located on my computer, I should have done something about it right away.  But I didn’t.

Fortunately, I had an online back-up service.  When my computer finally crashed, I knew that I had a way to recover the files I hadn’t used in a year.

But guess what? My online back-up files were so large, I wasn’t able to download them onto my new computer.  I tried numerous times but failed.  I finally needed to pay to have a large external hard drive sent to me to transfer over my files.

I’m happy to say, I retreived all of my files but it got me thinking. Wouldn’t it save a lot of trouble if I just had my own external hard drive to back up the files on my computer?

The prices of external hard drives have come down significantly since the last time I priced them.

I have tried external hard drives before, but they were always frustrating because I couldn’t tell whether they were actually backing up my data each day like they were supposed to.

How A 5 TB External Hard Drive Helps You

An external hard drive, like the Toshiba Canvio for Desktop 5TB one we tested, can be used in a number of separate ways or several ways combined together.  They are helpful for families to back up photos and share media files.  Here are 4 ways external hard drives can help you…

1. Back Up – The number one use for an external hard drive is to back up photos.  With the growing number of pictures you are amassing daily with your cute kids, you’ll want to ensure you back up your photos in case your computer crashes.  

It’s also a good idea to back up your videos, music, and documents on an ongoing basis.  With Toshiba’s included software, you can actually back up these files on all connected computers in the house.

2.  Complete PC Back Up – a larger capactity external hard drive, like the Toshiba 5 TB external hard drive, is big enough to back up your entire computer…operating software and programs.  Should something happen to your PC, you can use this back up to completely regenerate your old computer programs on a new computer.

3.  Media Server – back up your music, pictures, and videos on your external hard drive.  And if your computer is networked, you can share all of your media with other connected PC’s in your home.

4.  Movie Storehouse – For any movies you have digitally stored you can store than on your external hard drive so you can save room on your PC or laptop hard drive as well as share them across your network.  

I have been using an online streaming DVR called PlayOn lately, where I can stream shows and movies from Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, CBS, HBO, through PlayON, a free online service for streaming (though you still need to pay fees for any online membership services.)  PlayON has a  DVR so I can record any shows or movies.

I can even record movies from Netflix.  I have all of these recordings go straight to my external hard drive so I don’t fill up my PC.  And, again, because it’s connected to my network, I can access them from any of our connected computers, my Roku, my connected Samsung DVD player and my mobile devices.

How Big is 5 TB of Data?

As you can see, there’s a lot you can do with the Toshiba Canvio External Hard Drive.  So you just may be wondering, exactly how big is 5 TB (terabytes) of data?  Well, 

1 TB = 1,000 GB

Which means you’ll have 5,000 GB of data with this external hard drive.  To break it down for you further, if you just stored media files on your external hard drive, you could store…

• 2,500 hours of movie, or

• 1.5 million photos or 

• 85,000 hours of songs or

• 5,000 videos you’ve taken

Or any combination of these together – it all adds up to a LOT of media files you can hold on the external hard drive or back up from other computers in your household.

Features

• A 5 TB external hard drive stores a LOT of data
• Can store files locally as well as in the Cloud
• 3.0 USB for fast file transfers
• You have the option to fully back up your system to recover your PC fully
• Schedule back ups to occur at your preferred timing day or night
• Works with both the PC and Mac
• Strong encryption features to keep your files private
• Password lock protection to prevent unauthorized access
• 2 year limited warranty

Pros:

• Takes up little space and looks very modern and stylish
• Can back up a local computer or several through your home network
• Software is easy-to-use and includes dates and indicators to give confidence it’s backing up like it should
• Is very quiet when it is processing
• Can easily take all of your media to a family member or friends house to share your pictures, videos, music, or movies
• Can share media on your external hard drive with other computers on your network
• Can share some or all files online to retrieve your pictures from outside your home

Cons:

• The online storage option the back-up storage offers is a bit pricey.  But if you use Microsoft OneDrive online storage, than it can be free

Toshbia’s Canvio for Desktop External Hard Drive can be purchased at Amazon for $153.46 plus shipping.  If 5 TB is too much, Toshiba has a number of other options to choose from on Amazon as well.

A Mom’s Perspective

If you are not backing up your files, you need to begin…right away.  We all know that our computers could crash, we hear stories about it all the time.  You have spent hundreds of hours filming your kids and taking pictures of wonderful family vacations.  You don’t want to lose these memories.

When my computer crashed, I was not devastated, because a year before I FINALLY began backing up my computer, after years of no back up’s.  I was lucky.  Now, I have several ways I back-up my files, and this Toshiba Canvio for Desktop External Hard Drive is one of my favorite ways because it can back up my whole PC footprint as well as my pictures, videos, and music.

But I also like that I can store our movies on the external hard drive to access from our Roku, Samsung DVD player, and mobile devices through PlayON, as well as easily take our media files to a family member or friend’s house to watch movies together.

*  I was given a TOSHIBA CANVIO for Desktop 5 TB USB Hard Drive in exchange for my honest opinion.  All expressed thoughts are my own.