What Is An External Hard Drive?

If you are one of the millions of people who own a personal computer or a laptop

, it is likely that you are accumulating and storing data in your hard drive every time you log in to your system. Having too much data in your system can slow down the overall performance of your computer and is in danger of being lost in the event of a crash so it is important that you buy an external hard drive so you can keep your data secure and free up some space in your computer.

External hard drives allow you to be independent from system integration; you can connect your external hard drive to your computer through a number of connectivity options such as USB. Usually, external hard drives have a plug and play function and are compatible with any computer operating system (PC, Mac, or Linux). These hard drives not only store data, they can also be used for disk cloning, data recovery, backing up of files and information, booting operating systems, as a scratch disk for video recording and video editing applications, and for storing and running virtual machines.

You can choose between two types of external hard drives: a hard disk drive or a solid state drive. The hard disk drive became famous in the advent of the portable flash drive. Hard disk drives are widely available and (usually) inexpensive. They cost less per gigabyte than flash drives and are available in larger capacities. They can connect to a computer via USB 2.0 but some hard disk drives also have faster interfaces such as IEEE 1394 and eSATA. However, they can be fragile and can be damaged by shock and are vulnerable to strong magnetic fields. Solid state drives, on the other hand, are faster and sturdier than the hard disk drive because of the absence of moving parts. However, solid state drives are also extremely expensive.

External hard drives are available in a variety of storage capacities. The storage capacity of an external hard drive can range from less than 80 GB to 320 GB and up to more than 1TB. When thinking of storage capacity, do not reach out for the one with the biggest just yet. Think of what kind of files you want to store in it first. If you are going to store spreadsheets and word documents, you do not need that 2TB external hard drive. However, if you have accumulated over 2000 pictures, and have been regularly downloading music files and saving movies and television episodes in your computer, a 120 GB external hard drive is not going to cut it. Keep in mind that the higher storage capacity of the external hard drive, the more expensive it is.

by: Mitchel Lani

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