Backing Up Photos and Documents to External Drives

Why a Physical Backup Still Matters

Cloud storage is brilliant, and most of us use it in some form. But a cloud account is not a backup on its own. Accounts get locked, subscriptions lapse, and if your broadband goes down for a week you may find yourself unable to reach the only copy of your wedding photos or your business accounts. An external drive sitting on your shelf is something you physically control, works without an internet connection, and can be restored in minutes rather than hours.

For most UK homes and small businesses, the sensible setup is simple: keep your working files on your computer, keep a cloud copy of the really important things, and keep a full copy on an external drive that you update regularly. That way a failed laptop, a ransomware attack or a spilled cup of tea becomes an inconvenience rather than a disaster.

Choosing the Right Drive and Size

You do not need anything exotic. A reputable portable USB drive is fine, and the main decision is capacity.

• 1TB is plenty for a household with a few years of phone photos, some videos and all the usual paperwork. Expect to pay roughly £45–£70.
• 2TB suits a family that shoots a lot of video, or a small business with design files, databases and years of accounts. Around £70–£110.
• 4TB and above makes sense if you are backing up multiple computers or a large media library.

Portable drives are usually spinning disks (HDD) up to about 4TB, and solid state (SSD) above that. SSDs are faster and survive being dropped, but cost significantly more per gigabyte. For a drive that lives in a drawer and comes out once a week, a spinning disk is perfectly adequate.

Two practical points. First, buy from a shop you trust – fake-capacity drives sold cheaply online are a genuine problem and fail at exactly the wrong moment. Second, a drive with a USB-C connector is more future-proof than one with a fixed cable, which is the first thing to break.

Formatting It Correctly Before You Start

Formatting wipes the drive, so do this first, while it is empty. Plug it in, then check what file system it uses.

• exFAT – the best choice if you might ever plug the drive into both a Windows PC and a Mac. It handles large files and works everywhere.
• NTFS – ideal if you only use Windows. It supports very large files and permissions, but Macs can only read from it, not write to it.
• APFS or Mac OS Extended – the right choice if everything you own is Apple. Windows machines will need extra software to read it.

You can format from Disk Management in Windows or Disk Utility on a Mac. Give the drive a clear name such as BACKUP-2025 rather than "Untitled", and if the contents will include anything confidential – client records, payroll, medical letters – consider encrypting it. Both Windows and Macs offer built-in encryption when you format. Just be certain you record the password somewhere safe, because a forgotten password means the data is gone for good.

A Backup Routine You Will Actually Keep

The best routine is the one that survives a busy week. Plug the drive in, copy, unplug. That is it. Keep the folder structure on the backup identical to the one on your computer so you can find things quickly in a panic.

Set up a small number of clearly named folders on the drive:

• Photos – one folder per year, subfolders per event or month.
• Documents – personal, household, work.
• Business – accounts, contracts, customer records.
• Scans – passports, insurance policies, warranties, prescriptions.

Copy the whole folder rather than individual files. Windows will ask whether to replace or skip duplicates; choosing to replace is usually right, because the newer version is the one you want. On a Mac, use Finder to copy and let it merge. For anything above a few gigabytes, start the copy and go and make a cup of tea – do not unplug halfway through.

Always use the "safely eject" or "eject" option before pulling the cable out. Yanking a drive mid-write is one of the most common causes of corrupted backups, and it is entirely avoidable.

Storing the Drive Sensibly

A backup that lives next to your computer shares its fate in a fire, a flood or a burglary. The long-standing advice is three copies, on two different types of media, with one kept somewhere else. In practice for a household that might mean: the originals on your laptop, a copy on the external drive, and a copy in the cloud or on a second drive kept at a relative's house or in a locked desk at work.

Keep the drive somewhere cool and dry, away from magnets, radiators and direct sun. Do not leave it permanently plugged in – a power surge or a lightning strike can take out the computer and the drive together. Label it with a marker pen and the month you last updated it, so you can tell at a glance whether your backup is current.

Checking That Your Backup Works

An unverified backup is only a hope. Once a month, open the drive and actually open a file – a recent photo, a spreadsheet, a PDF – to confirm it is readable. Every few months, restore a folder to a spare location on your computer and check it looks right.

Finally, watch for warnings. Clicking, beeping or a drive that suddenly asks to be formatted are all signs of impending failure. If that happens, stop using it immediately and get advice before you try anything clever – repeated attempts to read a dying drive can destroy the very data you are trying to save. A drive that is five years old, or that you have dropped, should be replaced before it lets you down. Backups are dull right up until the moment they are the most valuable thing you own.