Portable Hard Drive

The life of a modern man, and even more so, of a modern business man, involves the need to operate with large volumes of information. And such a necessity gives rise to the need for devices capable of storing these volumes of information. One such device is a portable hard drive. To understand how to choose an external portable hard drive, our article will help.

Portable hard drive - the subtleties of choice

So, what do you need to know when choosing an external hard drive?

1. External hard drives are available in two form factors, or, in simple terms, in two diameters - 2.5 and 3.5 inches. From this parameter depends not only the dimensions of the housing into which they are placed, but also the amount of information that they can accommodate. For example, the amount of memory for 2.5-inch portable hard drives ranges from 250 to 500 GB. Portable same 3.5-inch hard drives can hold from 1 TB to 3 TB. But the 2.5-inch portable hard drive does not require additional power supplies, whereas for 3.5-inch operation it will be necessary to connect to the electrical network. The weight of a 3.5-inch portable hard drive is between 1.5 and 2 kilograms, which makes it much less mobile.
2. Choosing an external hard drive for storing a certain amount of information, it should be remembered that its real capacity is always slightly lower than stated. Therefore, the disk should always be selected with a small margin. For example, to store 320 GB of information you need to choose a portable hard disk with a memory capacity of 500 GB.
3. The speed of information processing by a hard drive depends on two parameters: form factor and method of connection. 3.5-inch drives work 1.5 times faster than 2.5-inch drives, and USB connectors with an interface version 3.0 provide a higher data transfer speed.
4. The file system of the portable hard disk must be compatible with the operating system of the desktop computer . Of course, it is not difficult to "repair" an external hard drive in accordance with the computer's operating system, but this is extra time.
5. Often, external hard drives are sold with the already installed software. Their presence serves as a kind of bonus when buying, so it saves the owner from the need to spend money on purchasing the programs necessary for the work of the disk.