What kind of external hard drive is right for you?
Many of the technology articles I write stress the importance of data backup, and for good reason; it’s one of the most important and criminally ignored parts of owning a computer, and most computer users don’t realize this until their hard drives fail and all of their files are lost.
Backing up to CD or DVD is okay, but it’s hard to develop a good backup method when user input is constantly required, and eventually the cost of buying dozens of CDs or DVDs can grow to be pretty significant. Clutter is also something to consider–who wants to deal with dozens of discs?
That’s why for data back up I usually recommend an external hard drive or two. The fun and confusing thing about external hard drives, though, is the amount of variety in the industry. Here’s a brief guide to selecting a hard drive that will best perform the functions you need, with a specific example in each case.
What to Buy if You Need a Lot of Storage
When you need to back up video or huge amounts of music, you’re going to need a really large hard drive (somewhat obviously). Try to buy a drive with more storage space than you think you need, since the tendency is to underestimate, and don’t skimp when it comes to drive specs–if you want a reliable drive, buy something that was made recently by a major drive manufacturer such as Seagate, Fujitsu, Western Digital, or Maxtor.
The Western Digital Mybook series and the Maxtor OneTouch series are both great choices in this department. Be sure to read about how the hard drive works; it might be two hard drives set up in a RAID system, and it’s useful to learn about the different options you might have for back up when setting up the drive (for instance, opting to mirror the hard drives rather than stripe them will provide enhanced reliability). Look for a hard drive with included back up software. Buy from a website like TigerDirect for the best possible pricing.
Sometimes, you just can’t have a whole bunch of cords and a two square foot box taking up valuable space on your desktop.
Luckily, there are a large variety of portable hard drives that are small yet powerful, and many can be powered from your computer’s USB 2.0 ports, eliminating the need for an extra plug on your power supply. These drives are no less functional than their larger brethren, though they’re not usually as large.
The Western Digital Passport series is a great choice for a small, fast hard drive, with sizes ranging from 60GB all the way up to 160GB.
What to Buy if You Need Portability
There are some users that need to transfer large amounts of files or back up multiple computers, and those users need an extremely portable
It might sound a bit silly, but I recommend getting an iPod if this is your most important criteria. Apple’s newest hard drive based model, the iPod Classic, has from 80-160GB of storage in a small and easy to connect package, and you can’t beat it for portability and the all-important fun factor. What’s better than jamming out to some of your tunes on the same device that holds your thesis? Well, probably a lot of things, but when you’re talking about portable hard drives, that’s just about as much fun as you’re going to get.
The iPod goes for $249 for the 80GB model and $349 for the 160GB model, and of course it plays video and music. It connects to your computer with USB 2.0, and works as well as any other external hard drive once disk management is enabled in iTunes’ settings menu. For those that aren’t interested in a music player, the Western Digital Passport is a great choice in this category as well.
Whatever hard drive you ultimately decide to buy, remember to figure out a back up system and stick to it. Buying an external drive and using it for backup is a lot less expensive than the alternative of paying for a data recovery service when your original drive eventually fails.
