External Media has been used for backups for a very long time, but has started to fall out of favor in the past few years due to its speed limitations. As capacities continue to climb higher and higher, the amount of time it takes to not only perform a backup but also a restore skyrockets. Tapes have been particularly hit hard in this regard, primarily because they were quite sluggish even before the jump to the terabyte era. Removable hard disks have been able to pick up on this trend however, as capacity and price have given them a solid lead in front of other options. But this takes us back to the question- why use EXTERNAL media? Internal media usually is able to connect faster, and is more reliable correct? Yes and no. While the estimated lifetime of storage devices has been steadily going up, there is always the chance for user error, data corruption, or hiccups on the hard disk. As a result, having regular backups to external media is still one of the best bang-for-buck methods available. Removable hard disks now have the capability to connect very rapidly, even without the use of a dedicated hot-swap drive bay. Through eSATA or USB3, these connections are nearly as fast as if they were plugged directly into the motherboard.