Monday 18 February 2013

Is An External Hard Drive The Best Choice?

By Luis Watkins


If you are going to buy a new hard drive for your computer, you'll need to decide whether to get an internal or external drive. This can be an important decision as each type has its advantages. Either drive should be able to offer you the data storage and memory that you are looking for and there are a number of well-known manufacturers of each type of drive. Both internal and external drives have their advantages, though, so it's important to know which type will work best for your situation.

If you need more space to store media and information files then this can be achieved in one of two ways. You can add another device externally, using the ports that are currently available on the system, or you can remove and replace the internal device instead. The first method is much easier and more convenient, and only requires a set up time of a few minutes. There is no special knowledge or skills needed and the instructions are very simple to read and follow.

If you do decide to go for a new internal drive, remember that it may take a considerable amount of time and effort for you to install yourself. If you decide to pay a professional to do it for you, be prepared because this can be costly. External drives don't involve any of these problems. Most modern computers already have the ports needed to add an external drive very quickly and easily.

Another consideration is how portable the device is. Most external devices are compact and plug right in to the computer. To transport, you can just unplug and they are small enough to store just about anywhere. It's important to back up all of your files on an external drive in case your computer ever crashes. If this happens, all you have to do is plug the external drive into your computer and you'll have back everything you lost. That reason is the main factor in why most people choose external drives over upgrading their internal memory.

When you start looking at the different price and size options, you'll find that you have a lot to choose from. For data storage, you can choose from drives starting around 116 gb and going all the way up to 1 tb. It's best to go with a larger drive than you expect to need because you don't want to run out of space and have to buy a second drive to store all of your files. If you plan to store movies, music, or games, remember that these will take up a lot of space.




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