It goes without saying that most everyone has experienced a situation where they wished they had backed up their hard drive or opted for the larger hard drive option.

Whether you’re a music download crazed maniac, photographer, or just don’t have the ability to throw a single file away then you need to take a look at getting an external hard drive. Even if you’re none of the aforementioned then trust me when I say your computer will crash and it will crash at the absolute worst time, they always do. With an external hard drive you might lose a few hours worth of data, but won’t you pat yourself on the back when you realize you’ve got a backup handy?

Before writing this post I backed up the contents of my MacBook Air onto my new Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini Portable Hard Drive. My unit is the OneTouch 4 Mini 250GB version (5,330 hours of digital music or 102,400 digital photos or 320 hours of digital video or 80 two-hour DVD quality movies). It’s more than three times the size of my Macbook Air’s hard drive. The OneTouch 4 Mini has a shock-resistant design and power-cable-less operation making it’s tiny size (5×3 inches) an absolute breeze to toss into my bag when I’m on the go. The one-touch back-up syncing between two computers makes portability that much sweeter.

What this means to you: Is there a way to say “better to be safe and portable and convenient than sorry?”

Cost: $70-$180 @ Maxtor