External Hard Drive Information
To make the right purchase, you will need a little external hard drive information to understand what the various terms mean.
The most common way of connecting an external drive to your computer is via USB or Firewire.
USB 2.0 is most widely used and is easily fast enough for copying and backing up your data. However there is now an even faster version called USB 3.0 which can offer at least 3 x quicker transfer speeds. This makes copying and backup up large files a very rapid task.
Typically Firewire would be more suited for use where data transfer and disk access times are important like audio and video recording though with USB 3.0 now, this is no longer necessarily the case.
One of the newest models is a 2TB capacity drive that can interface wirelessly with your computer(s) so files can be stored and shared at home or in the office. Some newer products provide a connection called eSata, the main benefit being that data can be transferred about three times faster than using a USB 2.0 cable.
Disc speeds come in at either 5400rpm, 7200rpm and less commonly 10000rpm and above. Most popular now are 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives and either would be a good choice for the majority of users looking to use the drive for backup and storage purposes. In general the faster the speed, the quicker it will operate. Most USB powered portable drives (see below) are 5400rpm and though obviously slower in speed, still remain more than adequate for backup use.
External drives typically come in two physical sizes, 2.5” and 3.5”. Portable external hard drives are mostly of the 2.5” variety and are powered via USB from the PC or laptop that they are connected to. They are slim line in shape and can be easily transported which makes them ideal for those who need large capacity along with ease of portability. The down side is that if you have a number of other USB devices connected to the computer, and in particular a laptop, then your drive may not perform to it’s maximum performance. 3.5” drives are housed in larger physical casings and although still portable in a sense, they are intended more for additional storage capacity. They often have their own power supply which in general provides for more stability when in use than a USB powered drive.
Disc capacities have increased greatly in the last couple of years and whereas 120GB used to be considered more than enough storage, 500GB is now commonplace. And now 1TB (1000 GB) and above drives are appearing more and more at very reasonable prices. When you consider a typical MP3 song is around 5MB in size, a 500GB drive could hold around 100,000 songs. The 2.5” drives generally have a smaller capacity but 1TB capacities are now widely available. One other factor that determines a drive’s performance is the buffer size. Most now have at least 8MB or 16MB cache sizes. If a drive can’t copy the amount of data being sent to it by the computer, it will store some of this data in the highspeed buffer so it can continue to receive the stream. The drive will then copy the data stored in the buffer onto the drive once it has caught up on the information being sent. Therefore the larger the buffer size the less likely there will be for interruptions to incur.
The most popular brands and best buy external hard drives are by Western Digital, Freecom, Lacie, Seagate, Buffalo and Iomega amongst others. All models will supply external hard drive information supplied by the manufacturer.