If you happen to purchase an external hard drive to backup your photos, there are two reasons why you should remove it from your computer when not in use (be sure to remove it correctly using your computer's safe hardware remove feature).

1) According to many online discussion forums, some external hard drives have a fairly high rate of failure. Keeping a hard drive plugged in and turned on at all times may put extra wear and tear on the device.

2) Viruses are continuously propagating. Some viruses delete all files, while others actually target pictures for removal. The less often you keep your device plugged into your machine, the less of a chance it will get hit by a virus. This is another reason you should consider burning photos to CD as well as using a backup device - once a CD-R has been burned, it can't get hit by a computer virus (it is conceivable that a CD-RW's contents, however, can get modified by a virus).

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