Choosing the Best External Hard Drive

The times are changing rapidly. Computer users are now faced with different options when backing up their most important files. Most users are moving to cloud providers for the convenience and ease of use. But what happens if you lose your connection to the internet? How will you access those files?

External hard drives are the answer. It is important to always keep an external hard drive as a backup plan. External hard drives give the user an efficient way to expand storage and to make a permanent backup of important files.

With so many options available, it is difficult to find the perfect solution. There are many brands to consider such as HP and Dell, but this is not the most important option. There are two important factors to consider when purchasing a new external hard drive.

Transfer Speed

Most people think that the size of the hard drive is the most important factor. But when it comes to choosing the right hard drive, speed is just as important. If you have a lot of files to transfer, you don’t want to have to wait a long time for the process to complete.

When considering the hard drive with the fastest speed there are two things that are important:

• Storage technology
• Connector

Some hard drives are faster than others. Solid state drives (SSD) can process the data much faster than regular hard drives (HDD). SSD’s are more expensive than a HDD and the majority of these models have less storage capacity than regular hard drives. There are models available with a larger storage capacity, but the price of these hard drives are extensive.

When it comes to the connector used to hook up the hard drive, there are several options to consider. All external hard drives use a USB interface. USB 2.0 is an old and outdated standard that should only be used for small transfers. USB 3.0 is the new standard and it produces a much faster transfer speed than 2.0 (up to 5 Gbps). USB 3.1 is now available and is gaining popularity. It offers transfer speeds up to 10 Gbps and claims to be more reliable.

Storage Capacity

This is the most important factor to consider when purchasing a new external hard drive. If you have a lot of data to store and backup then you will need a hard drive with enough storage space. If you have less data then you will need a much smaller drive. There is no reason to spend a lot of money on a drive if you are only going to use half of the space.

There are many devices available for the transfer of digital media, but if you want to expand the space of a computer, it might be better to go with a flash drive. These drives are physically smaller than normal external hard drives but can hold just as much data. The largest of these drives can hold around 2TB (terabytes) of data, while the smallest can hold around 8GB of data. The smaller flash drives can be purchased for less than $20 dollars.

The size of the drive is extremely important if you have large data files or a lot of data in general. Gaming systems use TB hard drives to ensure the proper storage of their gaming data because of how big the files are. If you are interested in storing large files and folders or run a small business, either a 1TB or 2TB drive should be plenty of space. If you are archiving your movie collection or just don’t want to run out of space, then you may need a hard drive with more terabytes.