Guide to buying external hardrives

If you are in the market for an external hard drive, this article will give you some tips on what to look for when purchasing an external hard drive. As well, I will give some alternatives to getting an external hard drive.

What is an external hard drive?

Facts
An External Hard Drive is a information storage device that is connected to a computer outside of the case through a USB port. An external hard drive is commonly used to store media, such as movies, or pictures. Another use is to copy your entire computer's hard drive onto the external drive as a back up copy in case anything happened to your computer's hard drive. Advantages
The advantages to an external hard drive is that you can move it between several computers. You can use your external hard drive with several computers to save and transfer files between machines. Directories
However, if you do save files from multiple computers on the same hard disk, it is beneficial if you make separate directories on your hard disk for the information. This way you can keep all of the information from one computer in one directory and all of the information from another in its own directory. If you are using your hard disk to back up multiple computers, you won't get files mixed up.

Where to purchase an external hard drive?

Purpose
You can purchase external disk drives from your local computer shops or a larger electronics retailer. You may even be able to find and purchase one online. Some things you should consider when purchasing an external hard drive are what it will be used for and how much space you will need. Something you might want for your computer is more storage space for data. However, an external hard drive is probably not the best choice for you. You should consider adding a second hard drive with the space you need to your computer. That is if you have a PC and have the space. If you have a laptop, then an external drive would be the choice because there wont be any spare space inside of your computer. Space
The second thing you should consider when you are buying the external hard drive is space requirements. If you plan on storing word documents on the device, you might want to consider a 1 terabyte hard drive however 320 gigabytes to 500 gigabytes is probably more reasonable. If you want to store tons of home videos, music, movies and other media, then a 1 terabyte hard drive and bigger might be the best choice for you.
Protection
If you are storing valuable information on the hard disk, you might consider one that has a key or password.