How to Buy an External Hard Drive

By eHow Computers Editor

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Data storage in your computer is of great importance. Archiving data helps optimize work functions and for this reason, external hard drives have become increasingly popular. When it comes to buying an external hard drive, the size and price are vital factors. Note that with increasing security lapses and hard disk crashes, an external hard drive provides high data protection to a user. It can also work as an additional hard drive to the one that exists in your computer. External hard drives are available both online and offline. Here’s how to buy an external hard drive.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Step1

Check your computer configuration. Decide on the size of data storage. Find the current space and memory (RAM). You can get it by right-clicking on "‘My Computer" and pressing the "Properties" button. Consider doubling the RAM in view of your future needs.

Step2

Assess your need for the external hard drive. If you require an external hard drive for listening to music or graphics, buy a special drive that allows these additional functions.

Step3

Determine the format of the external drive. Remember 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch are standard formats. The former is more portable and easy for storing the data quickly.

Step4

Confirm the interface for your computer. Most computers have USB or Firewire interface. The USB 2.0 interface is considered to be a good option for quick data transfer.

Step5

Plan your budget before making a selection of the external hard drive.

Step6

Learn more about the features and prices of external hard drives by referring to online buyers’ guides. Browse through reviews and compare pricing. Some popular buyers’ guides are NexTag, Windows Marketplace, MySimon and Epinions (see links below).

Step7

Browse through blogs and tech discussion forums. These are good avenues for gathering more information on features, trends and other insights on an external hard drive.

Step8

Buy an external hard drive after comparing prices in different stores online and offline. Search for online vendors using search engines like Google or Yahoo. Browse through popular online stores such as CompUSA, Best Buy and Circuit City (see links below).

Tips & Warnings

Choose a drive with audio and video output options for multimedia operations and connections to TV screen.
Do not go in for USB 1.1 interface as it has a sluggish transfer rate.

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Comments

chenhalls said

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on 11/30/2007 I have two laptops; one is a Mac and the other a PC. My wife and I have a good collection of music together, but each of us has our own iPods and playlists. Therefore, with my modest knowledge I thought it would be a good idea to have an external shared drive where we could store all our files and access them from either or both laptops. The idea is to use that external hard drive wirelessly as you would use an internal one, in each of the laptops.

My question is, is this possible? If so, which one would you recommend?

We are looking into buying something with 500GB. I was especially interested in a Western Digital, but I have read so many bad reviews, and – as you could probably tell by now – I am not enlightened with computer knowledge…

I appreciate all the help!

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