With the advent and availability of cloud-based storage systems like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive, it may not seem that physical external hard drives are all that necessary. It will provide extra and portable data storage to free up space or to backup your data (we are all familiar with the warnings about backing up our data). At some point, you may run out of space for your precious data like documents, photos, videos, and whatnot this is where an external hard drive comes in. With that definition out of the way, there must be consideration whether one is actually needed. Computers and smartphones come with internal hard drives, so think of it this way, an external hard drive is the inside, outside. It can be used to either backup data or serve as a storage solution. In the most basic of terms, an external hard drive is a device that connects to your computer, uh.externally.
