external hard drive Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Do SSDs need to be backed up like a hard drive?

Posted on January 26, 2025

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Question from Brenda: I took my laptop to Best Buy after the hard drive crashed and they installed a 2TB SSD for me. I can’t believe how much faster the computer runs now.

Luckily I had a backup when the hard drive crashed. I was reading an article today that said SSDs don’t break because they have no moving parts, therefore you don’t really need to back them up.

Is that true? [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I delete the files that came on my new USB hard drive?

Posted on May 17, 2024

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Question from Maurine: I bought a 2TB external USB hard drive to store my large collection of old family pictures on.

When I plugged the new drive into my computer I noticed that it has several files on it already.

One is a file with info about the warranty. Another is a user guide. I’m not sure what the other two files are.

My question is can I delete all these files or do I need to keep them?

[Read more…]

Q&A: Can you recommend a good external hard drive for a Mac?

Posted on May 1, 2024

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Question from Maria: Hi, Rick. I recently purchased a MacBook Air with an M processor.

I am new to MacBooks so I am on a learning curve even though I have both an iPhone and an iPad.

I wanted to buy an external hard drive for my processor but have no idea what type I should get. I would like it mainly to back up my iTunes library and photos. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Read more…]

Q&A: Should I replace a 4 year old SSD just to be safe?

Posted on January 26, 2024

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Question from Kendra: Hi, Rick. I really love your blog, especially the section where you answer questions from your readers.

If you don’t mind I’d like to ask a question of my own.

Back in March of 2020 the tech guy I used at the time installed a Crucial 500GB SSD in my Acer laptop and it really made it run a lot faster.

I recently read on another site that all SSDs wear out over time because they can only be written to a certain number of times.

That has me sort of worried because this drive is now about four years old and I have a lot of personal files on it that I don’t want to lose.

My question is do you think this drive is likely to fail at some time in the near future? [Read more…]

Q&A: Where can I buy a fireproof external hard drive?

Posted on November 22, 2023

Question from Jeromy : I run a business that deals with some pretty sensitive customer data that I would really prefer not to have stored in the cloud.

I know that cloud storage is supposed to be encrypted and secure, but with all the hacking going on these days I just don’t trust it.

Right now we’re using dual 2TB external USB hard drives to back up all of our data but I’m worried that a fire could wipe it all out.

What I’d really like to get is a 4TB external hard drive that’s fireproof. Do you know where I can get one? [Read more…]