Instead deleting data as your hard drive nears capacity, more people are turning to external drives to alleviate storage issues; this is because external hard drives are much more affordable than they once were. There are numerous benefits to storing everything you need, but that's not to say there aren't any downsides. Keeping track of externally connected devices such as printers and scanners can be difficult enough, without the risk of accidentally disconnecting a storage device containing important files and folders. 05 Mar 2009