Storage Full on My Book Essential 500G

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I own a WD My Book Essential (Model WD500H1U-00) with 500 GB of storage. Recently, I received a message that 67.9 GB had been stored and there were only 22.3MB free so the system would no longer back up. I ran the WD Lifeguard Diagnostics Test which stated that my external hard drive had a capacity of 500GB, with only 23MB free.

While I tend to back up everything, I am astonished that I have backed up 500GB worth of data.  Is there some way to free up more storage space without erasing everything on the hard disc, or is it easier to go out and buy a new external disc with much more storage.  (In the latter case, how do I move the data in my current hard drive over to the new hard drive.)  Whichever course I take, how do I avoid backing up extraneous data?  What shouldn’t I be backing up?

Any help would be appreciated.  I really have no computer knowledge.  Thanks.

2

What software did you used to backup your data? That is an old model

3

I am using Memeo backup to back up data.  I believe that software came with the hard drive.  The operating system on my computer is Windows 7.    At one time I owned an older My Book, but when I bought a new computer with Windows 7, I was told that the older model was incompatible and had to buy a new one that worked with Windows 7.

I have some feature with Memeo that lets me back up data to a WD “cloud”.  The only items I back up to the “cloud” are financial data, photos and videos, and I think I am up to around 60GB there.  I don’t know what kind of storage limit I have on-line.

If I buy a new external hard drive, what do you recommend (mfr., model, storage capacity)?