Having a backup of your important files and data is essential to avoid losing them forever in case of hardware failure, accidental deletion, file corruption, ransomware attack, natural disasters, or other catastrophic events. The best way to backup an external hard drive is to use another external hard drive as the backup destination.
Why Backup Your External Hard Drive?
External hard drives provide a great way to store large amounts of data and files externally from your main computer. However, they are still susceptible to the same risks that threaten data loss on your main internal drive. Some key reasons why you should backup your external hard drive include:
- Hardware failure: External hard drives can unexpectedly fail or crash, leading to complete data loss if no backup exists.
- Accidental deletion: Files and folders can be accidentally deleted from an external hard drive, with no way to retrieve them if unbacked up.
- File corruption: Drives can develop bad sectors, or files may become corrupt for various reasons.
- Theft or damage: External hard drives are portable and can be lost, stolen or physically damaged.
- Ransomware attack: Malware like ransomware can infect and encrypt data on external drives.
- Natural disasters: Floods, fires, earthquakes can destroy external hard drives and the precious data stored on them.
Backing up your external hard drive provides an up-to-date copy of your important files on another device. This gives you the peace of mind that your data is safe and recoverable if anything happens to your external hard drive.
Choosing an External Hard Drive for Backup
When selecting an external hard drive to use for backing up your main external hard drive, some key factors to consider include:
- Storage capacity: Choose an external backup drive with at least the same or preferably larger storage capacity as your main external hard drive.
- Durability: Select a sturdy and reliable external hard drive from a reputable brand for your backups.
- Portability: Make sure your backup drive is compact and portable like your main drive if you need to move it around.
- File transfer speed: Faster data transfer speeds will allow quicker backup processes.
- Connectivity: Match the connections (USB, Thunderbolt, etc) on your backup drive to your computer.
- Warranty: Opt for drives with longer warranties from the manufacturer.
- Price: Balance capacity, durability, and other factors with your budget constraints.
Popular external hard drive brands like Western Digital, Seagate, and LaCie offer quality drives suitable for backup purposes. always check customer reviews too prior to purchasing a particular backup drive model.
Backup Method 1: Using Backup Software
One of the easiest and most effective ways to backup an external hard drive to another external drive is by using dedicated backup software. Here are some top backup software tools to consider:
1. Acronis True Image
Acronis True Image provides full disk image backups to safeguard entire partitions or drives. It can automatically backup external drives to another external disk on a schedule. Key features include:
- Disk imaging for full system backups
- File/folder backup for selective data protection
- Mobile device backup support
- Backup scheduling and auto-backups
- External drive backup support
- Military-grade 256-bit AES encryption
- Incremental backups to save storage space
- Backup verification for reliability
2. AOMEI Backupper
AOMEI Backupper enables easy drive-to-drive disk and partition cloning backups. It also allows file/folder backups from one drive to another. Main features:
- Disk clone for full drive backups
- System/partition backup and restore
- File sync and auto-sync capabilities
- Schedule regular backups
- Disk imaging for bootable bare metal restore
- Backup encryption for security
- Supports external drive backups
- Straightforward user interface
3. EaseUS Todo Backup
EaseUS Todo Backup delivers reliable drive/partition-level image backups to safeguard your entire system. Key highlights include:
- Full system drive backup support
- Partition-level backups for flexibility
- Physical disk cloning capability
- Backup scheduling for automation
- Email notifications for backup alerts
- External USB drive backup support
- Simple and user-friendly interface
- Free unlimited P2P transfers for backups
Follow the step-by-step guide below to leverage any of the above software tools to easily backup an external hard drive to another external drive:
- Install and launch the backup software on your Windows or Mac computer. Accept any installation prompts.
- Select the source and destination drives – Choose your main external hard drive as the source drive to backup from. Select your second backup external hard drive as the destination drive.
- Choose backup type – Select full disk/partition image backup or file/folder backup depending on your specific needs.
- Schedule backups (optional) – Set a schedule for automatic periodic backups if required.
- Start the backup process – Click on the backup button to begin backing up your source external hard drive to the destination backup external drive.
- Wait for completion – Let the software complete the backup process. Times vary based on drive sizes and content.
- Verify backups – Use the verification tools in the software to confirm your backups completed successfully.
Following these steps will seamlessly and reliably backup your important external hard drive to another external drive using specialized software to automate the process.
Backup Method 2: Using The Native OS Interface
You can also use the native backup utilities built into Windows and Mac operating systems to backup external drives without any third-party software. Here’s how:
On Windows
Modern Windows versions like Windows 10 and Windows 11 provide a number of options to backup external drives using the tools already included in the OS:
- File History – Automatically backs up personal files stored in libraries, desktop, contacts, favorites, etc to another drive.
- Backup and Restore – Creates system image backups and recovery media to save and restore the entire system.
- Windows Backup Center – Enables backup of selected files, folders, or drives to internal or external storage.
Follow these general steps to leverage these native Windows backup tools for external drive backups:
- Connect your main external hard drive you want to backup and backup destination drive to your computer.
- Go to Settings > Update & Security > Backup in Windows 10/11.
- Under Looking for an older backup, select Go to Backup and Restore (Windows 7).
- Create a system image or select file/drive backups under Configure Backup.
- Choose your backup source (external drive to protect) and destination external drive.
- Follow the prompts to create a recurring backup schedule if desired.
- Start the backup job and let it complete.
- Check your backup drive to confirm your external drive contents were copied over.
On Mac
MacOS also provides integrated backup options through Time Machine and Disk Utility:
- Time Machine – Enables automatic hourly backups of changed files to external drives.
- Disk Utility – Can create disk image archives from volumes/drives for manual backups.
Here is an overview of the steps to leverage these tools to backup an external drive on Mac:
- Connect your main external drive and backup drive to your Mac.
- Open Time Machine preferences.
- Click Select Backup Disk and choose your backup external drive.
- Enable Time Machine to run automatic hourly backups.
- Use Disk Utility to manually create disk image archives of your main external drive.
- Save the disk images to your backup external drive for redundancy.
- Verify your external drive contents show up in Time Machine or disk images.
This demonstrates how you can utilize the built-in backup utilities on both Windows and Mac to easily backup important external drives without needing third-party software.
Backup Method 3: Drag and Drop Cloning
For a quick and easy external drive clone without backups, you can manually drag and drop all content from one external drive to another using Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder. Here is how this process works:
- Connect your main external hard drive and empty backup external drive to your computer.
- Open File Explorer on Windows or Finder on Mac.
- Browse to your main external hard drive and select all folders/files. Press Ctrl/Cmd + A to select everything.
- Drag and drop the entire contents of this drive to your backup drive in the other window pane.
- Let the copy process complete until all files are transferred.
- Safely eject both drives when done and store your backup drive in a safe location.
- Reconnect later to confirm everything copied over properly.
This gives you a cloned copy of your entire external drive that you can use for basic backups. However, incremental changes will not be captured later down the line. More frequent backups would require repeating this manual process periodically.
Backup Best Practices
Follow these backup best practices to maximize protection of your irreplaceable external hard drive data:
- Backup regularly – Run backups daily, weekly or monthly.
- Automate backups – Use scheduling to enable automatic periodic backups.
- Encrypt backups – Use password protection and encryption for backup security.
- Store backups offsite – Keep backup drives physically elsewhere for redundancy.
- Test restores – Validate your backups by restoring sample files periodically.
- Retain multiple versions – Use incremental backups to access previous versions of files.
- Monitor health – Keep an eye on your backup drive health using utilities.
- Replace older backups – Retire and replace backup drives every few years.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why clone external hard drives for backup?
Cloning replicates your entire external drive contents to another external drive as a backup. This allows easy bare metal restore in the event of equipment failure, damage or loss.
How often should I backup external hard drives?
Frequency depends on how often your external drive data changes. Daily, weekly, or monthly backups are recommended at a minimum for important or frequently changing data.
What size external hard drive do I need for backup?
Your backup drive should have at least the same or larger storage capacity compared to the drive you are backing up. Get a higher capacity backup drive if possible.
Should I automate external hard drive backups?
Yes, automating backups through scheduling ensures consistent, regular backup operations without needing manual intervention each time.
How do I restore from an external drive backup?
With drive image backups, you can restore your entire external drive or partitions directly. For file backups, simply locate the files on the backup drive and copy them back to the original or new external drive.
Conclusion
Protecting your external hard drive data is critical to avoid catastrophic data loss. Following the step-by-step guidance in this article, you can reliably backup your important external drives to another spare external drive using various software tools or manual methods for peace of mind. Just remember to verify backups periodically and store your backup drive in a safe location.