External Hard Drive

External Hard Drive have been becoming very popular in the last few years. An external HDD is the same as a normal hard drive, except it is external from the computer and connects to the computer via a USB port or Firewire Port.

What is so good about External Hard Drives?

There are a number of reasons why these new external drives are so good. I will list them below.

They are really portable and you can bring them with you wherever you go. They are like a really big USB flash drive. For more information on Portable Hard Drives go to this page that looks at the advantages and disadvantages of portable drives and reviews some of the best drives on the market.

They have a large storage capacity. They can store between 20Gb-2Tb (2000 Gb), while flash drives usually store between 1Gb-32Gb.

Excellent for backing up your computer. Because they are external they are easy to use to backup your information. Simply plugin your hard drive and drag over the appropriate files. I would argue that External Hard Drives are the number 1 way of backing up your computer.

Another advantage of External drives is that basically any computer, with any operating system will recognize them and be able to use them. This means that you can store information from a Windows Vista computer and upload it on a Windows 98 PC.

The really old external drives were too big to carry around and were not very helpful, but more recently the size of the hard drive has been shrinking till they are nearly pocket size.

Types of External Devices

External HDDs usally look similar to the image below. They have a case that covers the inside drive. The hard drive inside the case looks similar to the normal hard drive inside your computer.

The hard drive also has some ports at the back. There is one connection for USB or Firewire to connect to the computer. There is a power port, which connects to a normal powerpoint (although some small external drives generate their power from the computer). There is also a on and off switch so you can turn the drive on only when you need it.

Buying an External Drive

There are many options to look at when buying an external drive. When looking for an external drive, always think about what you need for your specific situation. If you need to backup videos, photos and large files than it is a good idea to get a big drive (maybe 500Gb-1Tb).

However, if you are just using it as a portable drive then maybe buy a smaller drive (about 100Gb or so). I would be careful not to go too much smaller, otherwise it defeats the purpose of buying a hard drive vs a flash drive.

External Hard Drive Reviews:

Below are a list of links to other pages on this site that review external hard drives in more detail according to their manufacturer. I highly recommend that you check these out before buying a hard drive.

In my opinion Western Digital are probably the best hard drive manufacturing company, although others would differ in opinion. Find out about all the hard drive manufacturers here and the pros and cons of each.

Western Digital External HDDs
Seagate External HDDs
Iomega External HDDs
Samsung External HDDs
Hitachi External HDDs

Other Recommendations:

Western Digital My DVR Expander Hard Drive – 500GB – Serial ATA/300 – External SATA – External

Record more delete less. Add My DVR Expander from WD to your eSATA enabled DVR and you’ll instantly add space for up to 60 hours of high-definition or 300 hours of standard definition TV.

500GB USB 2.0 MyBook Essential External HDD

Small, simple, elegant, and very easy to use. Just plug it in, and you’ve got plenty of room to back up and save your valuable data, music, photos, and movies. Are you running out of hard drive capacity? Do you need to archive some important digital documents, photos, or music?

This elegant external hard drive, reminiscent of a book, is the perfect solution. It takes no more space than a paperback book. Collect two or more and they nest neatly together like volumes on a shelf.

1TB USB 2.0 MyBook Essential External HDD

The 1 TB My Book Essential Edition USB 2.0 External HDD from Western Digital is a high-capacity external drive with an interface that allows it to be connected via USB 2.0, a 16 MB data buffer and a rotation speed of 7200 rpm.

The drive is housed in an elegant design that can be, at first glance, mistaken for that of a hardbound book. This makes the drive an excellent choice for anyone who would like to have a unique and classy drive to use for external data storage. The drive features built-in power-saving.