A:Answer You can do a "backup" procedure through your Windows programs and the files will be compressed and copied over to the new backup drive which can then be "restored" to another computer or the same computer later through a restore process. But in order to actually use the files, they have to be restored. Plenty of YouTube videos on this process available. That is the most technically prudent way to use this as a true backup in case of failures.
HOWEVER, easiest way, and most useful everyday way is to simply "Copy and Paste" just like you would any file. Just go to the folders or directories you want to backup and use, highlight, right click, choose "copy", then go over to the external drive directory, right click, and choose "Paste". If you're backing up the entire computer, just go to the directory (usually your C Drive) that contains everything and "Copy and Paste" to the external drive. The great thing about doing it this way is that you can carry the external drive wherever you go and plug it into any other computer and access all of your files and interact with them without having to do a "Restore". This is what photographers do in order to save space on their different systems and use the external drive to edit their photos on various computers.
The other major difference (and benefit) to doing it the first way is that since the process compresses all of the files, you are able to save a ton of space on the external hard drive and can backup a lot more data than doing a "Copy and Paste" process. Hope this info helps.
