Are you aware of what to look for when shopping for an external portable hard drive? Purchasing an external drive is among the most important things you are going to ever do for your computer system, choose wisely and carefully. They help to insure the safety of all your precious music downloads, digital photographs, and data in the eventuality of a hard drive failure and offer total portability of your digital data. The following are some basic tips you should consider before you make a decision:
Size – is generally dependant on how much and what sort of data files you’ve got. If you are using primarily spreadsheets and documents a smaller external
drive will be adequate for a long time, but if your digital pictures and music collections becomes bigger regularly, you might need more than 1TB or 2TB. Should you travel a whole lot, purchase a portable pocket drive that is around the size of a Smart Phone but stores plenty of data.
Speed – is how quick it takes your external hard drive to read and write data files to a eSATA device or USB 2.0. The eSATA type is faster compared to a USB for transferring big files, but calls for an external power source in addition to plugging the unit in your computer. Search for seek time of no less than 10ms, buffer size of 4MB or more, and 5400rpm to 7200rpm for best functionality.
Software – a lot of external portable drives have software that permits you to schedule automated back ups at a predetermined time. This will be an important convenience for providing the most recent updates without having to think about it.
Reliability – dependable units have a history of longevity, good speed, and lots of storage. There are a number of reliable name brands of external portable hard drives out there for a great price. Look at the computer magazines or technical Geek websites for expert reviews and look for deals online.
Network adaptability – If all of your family members have their own laptop or computer, or you are a small business owner with multiple computers, you might need a network attached storage device (NAS). Which are generally very high capacity external drives that will easily back up records for networks of a number of computers.
Now you have got an idea of what functions and features are important and what to look for when selecting an external hard drive, make a price comparison, check around, and get as much storage space that you can possibly manage, do it right now, you will not be sorry.