How To Use Portable Hard Drives And Infrared Cctv Cameras

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Storage capacity has become increasingly important as the use of laptops for business, personal and leisure activities has expanded. Storage needs have changed and external USB devices such as portable hard drives now play a more important role, giving access to previously unimaginable drive sizes, which are needed for the storage of higher definition digital images, videos, movies, and music files.

Portable hard drives can be used either as primary storage for files or as a backup drive for such media in case of the failure of the primary system drive. Storing files on portable drives can also help improve laptop performance by freeing up hard drive space when the internal drive starts to fill up.

Portable drives also play an important role in off-site backups for small businesses, being small enough to be transported from office to home in a pocket or briefcase, or secured in a fireproof safe overnight to ensure that data is not lost in the event of an accident to, or loss of, the main system. Many portable hard drives have the option to encrypt data to prevent ...
... unauthorised access in the case of its loss or theft.

Connectivity for portable hard drives is via a USB port connector which also delivers power to run the drive. Their small size (typically less that 65mm and weighing around 200g) hides their robust nature, whilst their capacity of up to 1Tb (i.e. 1000Gb) makes them an attractive and effective storage option.

Portable hard drives may also be used as a storage facility for images captured by infra red CCTV cameras used for security or surveillance. As the amount of data captured by such devices can be huge, having separate portable hard drives for storage makes sense in both storage and archival terms. More than one portable hard drive may be used on a system depending on USB port capacity, although this may be extended by the use of a USB hub.

Infra red CCTV cameras can be set to record to a video capture device or to a digital video recorder, but those files will soon fill internal disk drives causing performance problems for the system. By transferring the captured images to a portable hard drive it frees up space and allows the security system to continue to work effectively. Such transfers can be done on a regular schedule by the use of software, or carried out manually by the user.