I need to get an ext. HD for back up. Looking at a 2.5" model that gets it's power from the USB. Primary use is auto back up of desktop. Also want to manually back up wife's desktop and a laptop. I assume I can auto back up my desktop AND create separate folders to manually back up 2 other computers.

I think the smaller, USB powered HD is more portable and limited use backing up the laptop will not strain the battery (mostly use laptop plugged in anyway)

I will do my own research and compare specs but thought I'd ask users more familiar with ext HD's used for back up first. My concern is reliability and access speed. Do the larger, powered 3.5" HD's tend to be more reliable and have faster access times?

  

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