External drives are too unreliable. I'd rather see a duplicate set of media if it is important to keep the content. That is, sure, copy to hard drive but keep the old media for safety and backup.
Two hard drives is not backup. This is something I no longer write in detail. Why? It's IT lore and more.
As to the CPU, computer system it appears something is lost here. For the copy from CD/DVD to external I could use any 399 buck laptop to get it done. Why the killer machine?
Bob
Over the last 5 years I have scanned and save to cds and dvd some 4000 pictures. 2000 are my mothers (still living at 99) and cover 80 years of her life. I think it would be prudent to convert these to external drives and set them on the shelf as well. I have 520 CD and 272 DVD to convert. Looking for advice as to computer capibility and external storage to use. Such things as processor speed, type, memory, type Hd, and best brand name external storage devices. Thinking using two 500 Gig external. One for my pictures and one for my mothers pictures. Ecost has a Core i5 system with 8Gig ram and 1TB Sata HD which would seem to be a way to go considering trade off of cost and performance. External HD are not clear. Most of them reviewed seem to have some bad reviews among them. I figure this forum could help me out. Thanks Fighterpilot.

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