Buying Tips For External Hard Disk Drive
First of all, an External Hard Disk Drive is a combination of two different computer’s hardware product, the first one is computer’s Internal Hard Disk Drive and the second one is Sata to USB Converter Casing where the internal hard disk drive gets fit in.
Normally the main use of an external hard drive is to use the storage device via USB or Wi-Fi connection and a lot of people mainly using it to take the backup of their laptop or computer system. The best part about an external hard disk drive is that you can unplug it from your computer and take it anywhere you want with you and just use it on any computer or mobile devices.
Nowadays there are only two types of External Hard Disk Drives are available in the market for the consumer use, and the first one is External USB Hard Disk Drives and the another second one is Wi-Fi External Hard Disk Drives.
Both devices are mainly used to store data but the actual difference which makes these two devices different from each other is that the USB External HDD can only be used in laptops or desktops, where the WIFI External HDD can also be accessible from your Android or IOS mobile device other than the laptop and desktop with the help of Wi-Fi Connection, which really makes it quite useful.
External USB Disk Drives – USB Drives is also called Portable Hard Disk Drives which mainly born to use by USB Ports of your computer or laptop, some of the External USB Drives need external power source where some only need to be attached by only a single USB cable.
External Wi-Fi Disk Drives – These type of drives also works same as compared to a normal external disk drive, but the befits what you take from it is that you can use this drive on any Computer or Mobile who have Wi-Fi Network Chip built in it, and not just that if you’re having a Smart TV in your home, then you can also access this HDD wirelessly on your Home Television too.
So, it means if your desktop computer, laptop or mobile device have a Wi-Fi network card built in it then you can use this drive wirelessly by connecting to the Hard Disk Wi-Fi Connection which is actually created by the Hard Disk’s Wi-Fi hotspot.
And To use this device wirelessly you don’t need any USB Cable or Power Extension because this device comes with built-in Power Backup battery which allows you to use the drive for about 5 hours of running time access, and yes you can recharge it to charge the battery by using a USB cable or maybe with a power adaptor which mainly comes in the Wi-Fi HDD box.
So, Now Let’s See The Key Features What You’ll Need To Look At While Buying An External Hard Disk Drive:
While the purchasing time, there are so many different types of question arises in everybody’s mind like, how much space capacity Drive do I really need to buy or how fast that drive will be backing up my data files, or how to compare the speed difference in those different External HDDs or is that drive is convenient or protects my data, or etc.
But the thing is, now you don’t have to worry about these questions because by reading this article, I’ll definitely going to help you out to become an HDD Professional Buyer when it comes to buying a new External Disk Drive.
Here’s the list of things what should need to check before selecting any drive for yourself:
- Storage Capacity
- Speed
- Portability
#All About The Storage Capacity
Nowadays availability of a storage capacity in HDD is about from 320GB to 8TB but it all depend upon you to decide how much storage you actually need for yourself.
So, if you only need an external drive for backup your computer or laptops data, then you can buy an external disk drive exactly the same amount of storage capacity drive what your laptop or computer is using right now, like if your computer having 500GB HDD running in it then the 500GB of External HDD really going to be perfectly fit for all your backup needs, or otherwise I highly suggest to people, to buy big storage drive for all the future data storage needs because the size of the data is getting bigger day by day.
Wi-Fi HDD’s is also the most expensive one in this External Drives Category and mainly people using it to back up their phone’s or tablet’s data or you can also transfer some movies or episodes in it from your laptop and take it with you on your next trip and on the way to your destination you can stream those videos or movies what you’ve copied from your laptop on up to 5+ devices wirelessly in High Definition.
According to me, if you need a decent External storage device for yourself then the 500 GB capacity drive is the recommend one and that’s the capacity what I always suggest to every normal computer user because 500 GB means you can storage about 350 Full HD movies in it, which is actually more than enough.
#All About The Speed
Speed is mainly everything for a storage device and that’s the reason why you’ll need look at the hard disk drive’s performance specification before buying any, and actually there are only two things which are the main key factor who decides the whole external disk drive’s performance and speed, which are:
- Hard Disk Speed – Just like I said, an external drive made up of two different things and both things need to be fast in order to performance well. So, to check the hard disk’s speed you’ll need to see how much “Round Per Minute (RPM)” that drive’s disk can perform. A hard disk is made up of a disk motor and some rewritable disks and the reader or a writer who process all the data structure in it. The whole performance of hard disk depends on how fast that motor runs, so there are different types of motor which are available in the market which mainly describes as RPM speed of the hard disk, RMP means round per minute of the disk rotation of your hard drive and if a hard disk’s specification shows 7200 RPM, that means it will going to run the disk at the speed of 7200 round per minute in the drive. The Higher RPM number is better.
- Hard Disk Casing Speed – External Hard Disk Casing speed is the second most important thing which can determine the whole performance of the data processing, and finding the Drive’s Casing speed isn’t that really hard too because you’ll just have to look for the USB Interface Specification on the drive’s compatibility spec section and nowadays there are only two types of USB Interface Hard Disks are available in the market, and those are “USB 2.0” and “USB 3.0”, and mainly USB 3.0 is faster than the USB 2.0 hard drive but not ever computer or laptop supported USB 3.0 and even if you buy a 3.0 Hard Drive for yourself and trying to use it in 2.0 USB port, then you’ll just get the speed like USB 2.0 only, because the reason is, your computer don’t support 3.0 USB. Or otherwise, I’ll always suggest buying a 3.0 External Hard Disk Drive.
#All About The Portability
Portability in Hard Disk means a drive who can protect the files from minor shock, damages or can save your files securely. Actually, an External drive who come with proper hardware based encryption which is a lot better than a software based encryption because it can make your data safe when you’ve needed to save some extra sensitive files and document in it and having some extra great security to protect the data from thief is also a good thing which you can keep up with.
And for Wireless Hard Drives, the main thing which matters the most is the battery backup, and that’s the only thing what you’ll only need to make sure about it, like how powerful battery is that drive is having in it or maybe all about the battery backup time limit.
The another main thing which you’ll also need to make sure about it is that you’ll always need to buy your OS Compatible External Drive because some hard drives are only compatible with Windows or maybe Mac, and on the other hand some are compatible with mac and windows both. So, please make sure about the compatibility or otherwise that drive won’t work on your PC.
These days mostly all latest hard drives are compatible with every latest Operating System;
If you are not in a mood to fuss with installing and configuring utility software from external source, then choose a drive who includes useful software programs like a backup tool or etc. And at last, always make sure about that you will buy a longer warranty limit External Hard Drive because the longer warranty drives also won’t get faulty easily.
