The question came up.  How do I partition an external hard drive?  This is a good thing to know especially if your external drive dies and you replace the drive inside the case with a new one.  Or if you just want to break that huge new drive into seperate logical drives.  This way you’ll have two 500 Gig drives rather than a 1 TerraByte drive.   Do this with a NEW drive or at least a drive that is empty and doesn’t contain files you want to save.  All data is lost when you partition a drive so if there are files on it copy them somewhere else.

Partitioning USB drives can be done using Microsft Management Console which is built into Windows.  To start MMC enter mmc in the Start Search box or with XP the run box.  This will open the program.   Click on File and then Add/Remove Snap In.   Click the Add button and then double click on Disk Management.  Click Finish and close the selection boxes.  Now you should see the Disk Management program in the Console Window.

Now double click on the Disk management program and you will see the drives connected to your computer.  Your drives will show the current partitions and unallocated space.  Your new drive will show the entire drive as unallocated so right click and select create partition.  You will be able to set the amount of space you want to use.  To split the drive into two logical drive you would only allocate half the space.  If you want one big drive you select all the space.  You can also assign drive letters.  You can then use MMC to format your new partitions and make them ready for use.

If you have an old small external hard drive you can put a new higher capacity drive in to that case.  Bare drive prices are pretty low.  We always find good deals at TigerDirect.  Click the banner below and check them out yourself.

Hard drives have come a long way.  New Hard Drives won’t be drives at all but big blocks of memory that will replace your mechanical hard drive all together.  Mechanical Hard Drives eventually fail.  Why?  Because they are mechanical.  They have a motor, moving heads, and spinning platters.  The new devices won’t have any moving parts and kept from over heating should last a long, long time.  Prices right now are a little high but soon this will be the standard type of device used in computers to store your data and files and prices will come down.  Click the banner below and see what Tiger Direct has to offer you and learn more about available Solid State Hard Drives.

With all the mal-ware out there today you never know when you’re going to have to re-do your computer.  Reformat your hard drive and re-install Windows.  It happens all the time and you end up loosing all your pictures and music along with any documents and files you may have stored in personal folders.  Do yourself a favor and get an External Hard Drive and start saving your stuff there.  Your music, photos and anything else you save.   This way if the unexpected system crash happens you’ll have all your files safley stashed away.  The price of these drives has become very reasonable and worth the investment.  You can find them at most local computer stores or find great deals here at Tiger Direct.  Don’t loose it all put it on an external hard drive.

Backup to your New External Hard Drive automatically
We use some great backup software that you could also make use of to backup all your files automatically while you sleep.  It’s called Cobian Backup. Its packed with many useful features and it’s FREE.  You can get it here.