
But if you’re burning or ripping discs, the rate at which a drive can move data from your computer’s hard drive to the disc or vice versa becomes more important.
Speed: If all you’ll use your drive for is playing discs, just about any drive you buy will perform similarly. We didn’t require Blu-ray drives to support reading and writing to Ultra HD (or UHD, or 4K) Blu-ray discs, but we considered it a nice bonus if you didn’t have to pay much more for that feature. Read and write capability: DVD drives must read and write DVDs and CDs, and Blu-ray drives must read and write Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs. Some external drives avoid the problem altogether by using a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. Cable types include Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt2, Thunderbolt 3, USB, USB-B (USB Type-B), USB-C (USB Type-C), and Firewire. Some accept multiple communication cables, but a few, especially some portable models, only accept one kind of cable. One of the most important aspects of choosing an external hard drive is selecting one which can plug into all of your devices. They can backup entire PCs and laptops, as well as storing all of the pictures and videos that may be bogging down your smartphone.Įither type might be a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid-state drive (SSD). These tend to be physically larger, and many have several TB of storage capacity. Most importantly, they are powered by the laptop, phone or device they are plugged into, usually through a USB-B, USB-C or another type of powered communication cable.ĭesktop hard drives tend to be larger, and have a power cord that plugs into the mains AC.
This type of hard drive may lack high-end storage capacity, but many portable hard drives have a full TB of storage or more. Portable hard drives tend to be physically smaller, and often fit into a pocket. The main differences are in their bulk, the degree to which they can withstand the jostling of travel, and their power supply. Portable Hard DrivesĮxternal hard drives may be portable drives or they may be purely desk-mounted devices. Popular external drive brands include Seagate, WD (Western Digital), LiaCie, MiniStation, and Adata. An external hard drive may be the answer. It may be that one or more of your devices is simply full, or you just need backup for your most important files.
This is simply that the hard drives in these devices wont store all of our data.
In a world of ever smaller and lighter mobile digital devices, we all seem to be running into the same problem. External Drives for all of your data needs