The default approach for storing files on drives other than your boot drive is to get an external storage device and then copy your files to it; however, by doing so you leave open the possibility of someone getting your drive and accessing your data. To secure the files you place on such drives, there are several approaches you can take, including encrypting files or the drive itself, and using special setups to require two or even more physical drives be attached before you can access the data on them. Continue reading
Options for securing external storage in OS X
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When some problems such as hard drive corruption occur on your Mac, or if you need to perform account maintenance such as resetting passwords or fixing account permissions, then you will need to use the tools that Apple includes on the hidden Recovery drive that is part of OS X. However, in some cases such as for RAID arrays, you may not have a recovery partition, in which case there are several alternatives you can use, even if you are limited by your internet connection: