How to Backup Computer to External Hard Drive (3 Steps)

Why backup PC to external hard drive?

Backing up computer is necessary to minimize the damage of losing data. As a computer user, you should know that there are many situations that can break your data. You store so much data on computer, including songs, pictures, videos, documents, projects, and so on. They are important to you. Once they are lost, you will suffer big damage.

Actually, there are many types of backup devices where you can store the backup image. Here is a list of four popular computer backup options:

	USB Flash Drives	External Hard Drives	Network Storage Servers (NAS)	Cloud Services
Portability	Very Portable	Portable	Stationary, Limited Mobility	Accessible from Anywhere
Capacity	Limited Capacity	Higher Storage Capacities	Scalable, Often High Capacities	Scalable, Various Subscription Plans
Ease of Use	Plug-and-Play, Easy	Generally Easy to Use	Requires Initial Setup, Configuration	Easy Access and Management, User-Friendly Interfaces
Speed	Quick for Small Backups	Faster Than Many USB Drives	Network Speeds, Slower than Local Storage	Internet Speed, May Be Slower

You may back up computer to external hard drive for the following reasons:

• Separate from computer: You do not need to worry that the data will be lost because of a series of situations that happen to your computer.
• Portable: You can bring an external hard drive everywhere and use the data you backed up on it.
• No dependence on network or Internet speed.
• No recurring subscription fees.
• More private and secure, as the data remains physically in your possession.

Well, how to backup computer to external hard drive? Please keep reading.

Free backup tool for your computer backup

To backup computer to external hard drive actually means to backup all data on the computer hard drive. How to backup computer to external hard drive? For simple steps and safe operation, you’d better choose a professional backup software to do it. AOMEI Backupper Standard is a fabulous software that can backup computer to external hard drive only with a few clicks. 

• It is free for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP.
• It is embedded with the Disk Backup feature to help you backup the entire computer hard drive. You can also backup only OS to external hard drive via System Backup.
• It allows you to backup to various locations, such as backup Windows 10 to NAS, cloud storage, USB thumb drive, external hard drive, etc.
• It supports all disk brands. You can choose Seagate, Samsung, SanDisk, WD external hard drive and so on.

How to backup computer to external hard drive in Windows 11/10/8/7

Here we will tell you how to backup computer to Seagate external hard drive. Before you do, you need to prepare for it:

• A Seagate external hard drive that is capable to store all data on your computer. Connect it to your computer and make sure it can be detected.
• Download AOMEI Backupper Standard for free. Install and launch it.

Then, follow the guidance to backup computer to external hard drive using AOMEI Backupper.

Step 1. As the Disk Backup feature will backup all data on computer, here click Backup -> Disk Backup.

Step 2. Here you need to choose the disk which you want to backup on your computer as the source disk. Then, select your Seagate external hard drive as the destination disk to store the backup image. Here is the F:\.

Step 3. Click Start Backup to launch the progress. After the job is done, click Finish to exit.

Bonus tip: How to backup computer to external hard drive automatically

If you want to backup computer to external hard drive automatically, AOMEI Backupper can make it as long as you do not extract the external hard drive. To do this, you can click Schedule Backup at the left bottom before clicking Start Backup, and it will pop out a window for you to set up an automatic backup. You can choose from daily, weekly, or monthly.

You can also do an incremental or differential backup under Backup Scheme. If you’d like to use “Differential Backup”, edition upgrade is needed.

You can set up an automatic backup with AOMEI Backupper even after the backup task is created. Click Home tab, put your mouse on the backup task you want to edit, expand the drop-down menu and select Schedule. Then you will get to the window where you can set up automatic backup.

How to backup computer to external hard drive? You may have an answer after reading this article. As a fabulous backup software, AOMEI Backupper provides many other utilities for free, such as create bootable disk, sync local folders to OneDrive, and many more.