Choosing the External Hard Drive That You Need
External hard drives are essential pieces of equipment for people like students, academics, and anyone else who regularly needs to transport documents and/or data. Companies such as Seagate and Western Digital specialize in data storage, while other companies like Sony and Toshiba have a specialized data storage line of portable external hard drives. If you are looking for a new hard drive, it is important to think about several things, including:
How Big Do You Need Your Portable Hard Drive to Be?
Hard drives and other data storage devices come in a wide range of sizes. Smaller flash drives start from just a couple of GB, while larger portable hard drives can reach storage spaces of over a terabyte. If you arent sure about how much storage space you are going to need, think about the following:
- What sort of files will you be storing? If you are only storing things like word documents and PDFs, you wont need a whole lot of storage space. However, if you want to start storing video footage or music, you will need to go for a larger hard drive.
- How long do you need to store them? If you are simply for a portable data storage solution to move files between desktop computers, then a simple plug-and-play flash drive will probably be enough. However, if you want to store files for a long time, you will eventually need a lot of external storage space - which means that you should probably go for an external hard drive.
- How many files do you need to store? If you dont need a whole lot of storage space, you could try using Wi-Fi to access cloud storage, or you could go for a small portable flash drive.
What Are You Going to Use Your Hard Drive For?
Uses for portable external hard drives vary according to a persons needs. When choosing a portable hard drive, it is extremely important to make sure that you find one which is compatible with your needs. Some of the features that you should look out for include:
- The simplicity of use - Wherever possible, go for a pre-formatted HDD storage device. Doing this will make using your new portable drive as easy as plugging it in and getting started.
- The speed of storage - If you are planning on storing large files on your hard drive, you will need something which can read and write data very quickly. In this case a portable SSD (solid-state drive) will be your next choice.
- The reliability of storage - If you are planning on backing up data long-term, you will need a quality hard drive which wont lose data over time.