Selecting a New Hard Drive For Your Computer

It is hard to imagine that anyone could fill up one of the huge hard drives that are included in most computers today, but considering that almost everything is in multimedia format these days, all that music, those photos and multiple videos can consume space pretty quickly. And if you work with graphics or any type of labor intensive software, then you may find yourself out of hard drive space sooner than you think.

When you are selecting a new hard drive for your computer, it is important to choose carefully to ensure that your hard drive works well and lasts longer. In this case, cheaper is definitely not better. When you are choosing a new hard drive, the most important factors are quality and reliability. In this way, you make certain that your hard drive does not experience any unnecessary mechanical failures or losses of data.

Of course, when you are running out of space on your current hard drive, one of the things that you will be comparing with different hard drives is the storage capacity. When you are considering how much space you need for your new hard drive, you need to think about how you actually use your computer and what types of files you actually store. Someone who just stores the minimum amount of information does not need a 1000 GB hard drive. However, if you are storing full length movies or doing some serious video editing, a hard drive with 500 GB or more of storage space is not out of the question. Keep in mind also that the newest hard drives with the latest technology are going to include more storage space than you will probably need. So weigh your options.

Hard drives transfer in one of two ways - either via an IDE or SATA connection. IDE hard drives are older and transfer data at the rates of 33, 66, 100, and 133 MB/s. If you have an older computer, then you may only be able to upgrade to the max in this range. The newer SATA hard drives transfer data at much higher speeds - 150 and 300 MB/s. Hard drive technology is always changing and evolving, so be sure to do your research beforehand.

What you pay for your new hard drive will depend on a number of factors - one of the biggest factors being storage capacity. Another factor that will affect how much your new hard drive costs is the rotation speed. Faster rotation speeds indicate how much more quickly your information will be found. You should look for a hard drive with at least 7200 RPM rotation speed.

With so much information to review, it can be pretty difficult to decide which hard drive upgrade is best for you. If you can afford it, a faster hard drive with a couple hundred gigabytes of space will probably be what you need and a bit more. Well known brands such as Seagate and Maxtor are definitely worth considering as these companies are known for producing top quality products that last.

Making a good choice when selecting your new hard drive will ensure that you have enough storage space and that you can access your information quickly. You can also take comfort in knowing that you have chosen a product that will hopefully last you for a while to come.

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Using An External Hard Drive To Keep Your Data Safe

If you want to keep your data completely safe, you should look into types of data backup that do not require constant power supplies. While discs such as CDs and DVDs are a good way to make a smaller, permanent backup, external hard drives are another great way to back up your data safely. Just make sure that the drives do not stay connected to your computer and on - otherwise they'll be as at risk as your normal internal drives. You don't want your backup to be damaged in the same disaster that takes out your computer!

External hard drives are not actually new technology. In fact, these drives work in much the same way as a normal hard drive. Before external drives were affordable, there are some computer users who made external drives by setting internal drives into an outer casing. These worked fairly well, but they did not stand up to being moved around as much.

Over the last several years, external drives have become affordable, small, and easy to use. There are even some compact USB hard drives that can fit in a pocket. These drives are also much faster than they used to be, something that is being helped by the switch from serial and parallel connections to USB and firewire.

How much data can an external hard drive store? Most external hard drives are about the same size as a normal hard disk inside of your computer. In fact, one of the smallest capacities is just 60GB . However, there are many other disk sizes available at this point in time. Recently, external hard drives with as much as 1000GB of space have begun to appear on the market. It won't be long before we move into true Terabyte territory. These huge storage capacities are the main reason why external hard drives are rapidly becoming the most popular form of computer backup for the normal computer user.

If you do not want to pick and choose through the files on your computer to determine which ones you want to save, don't worry! Most of the hard drives will come with a CD that has drivers and some basic backup software on it. In most cases all you have to do is install the software, plug in the drive, and click "backup" and the software takes care of protecing your email, My Documents folder and all the most commonly backed up items.

Once again, if you are using an external hard disk for computer backup, do not leave the external drive connected to your computer. Additionally, you should also have more than one backup of your important information. You can do this by using an online backup service, or by burning your most important files to a DVD or five.

The best hard drives out there are going to be the ones built by major name brands. Maxtor, Iomega and Western Digital drives are known to be high quality and will last a long time. Purchasing a cheap, no-name external hard drive will save you money up front, but it is very likely that you will end up regretting it when it breaks down and you find out that your warranty is worthless.

If you're not protecting your computer against data loss then you need to get your head around online backup systems before you suffer from serious data loss. Article provided by HomeOfficeBuddy dot com.

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5 Tips For Buying An External Hard Drive

So you've finally decided to buy an external hard drive as a backup option for your computer. This is a great choice for you because you're making backing up your data faster and easier than you could ever have imagined. You're also making your data far more portable in larger quantities than before.

You'll no longer be limited to storing a few hundred megabytes or even several gigabytes. Nope. Now you can look forward to portable and reliable storage capacities ranging into terabytes. That frustrating desktop computer or network file server backup job just got a whole lot easier.

If you've never bought an external hard disk before then there's a few pointers here that may help to have on your shopping list before you go and make that final purchase.

1. Buy A Brand

Do yourself a huge favor and buy a brand name that you easily recognize. Sure these may cost a little more than brand x but with computer accessories like this you really do get what you pay for. If a Western Digital 100GB external drive costs $200 and another brand x 100GB drive costs $80 why do you think that is? Because the company likes you? Because they like making smaller profits? No it's because it's a cheaper drive made with inferior parts that's going to break a lot sooner than you might expect.

The other aspect of sticking with a brand is your warranty. For example Maxtor, Western Digital and Iomega are all reliable companies and well known for their external hard disks. If something goes wrong with your drive you can have it fixed. With brand x you'll probably not even be able to find an email address that you can contact the parent company on. Is saving a few dollars worth that risk?

2. Google It

Whatever brand or model you decide on make sure you do some research before purchasing. Always, always Google the exact brand and model of the drive you're considering buying. Look for reviews and especially any feedback on how reliable a drive is. You'll be very surprised to find that some companies have particularly bad reputations in terms of equipment reliability and what's known as the "click of death" in the external hard drive industry.

Spend time in Google checking out your prospective purchase. You'll be glad that you did.

3. Connectivity

When it comes to external hard drives you'll need to choose carefully when selecting your connection types. Your external hard drive will support either USB or Firewire. Firewire is the fastest option available at the moment but your computer may not support this. The vast majority of modern computers will, however, feature a USB port.

The next question now is what type of USB port do you have - USB 1.0 or 2.0? If your computer only has a USB 1.0 port then your external hard drive is going to transfer data VERY slowly. USB 2.0 is the minimum you should consider as connection options for both your computer and your external hard drive. If you don't have a USB 2.0 port (also called HiSpeed USB) on your computer you may need to get a USB 2.0 card fitted.

4. Speed

Now of course we need to talk about speed. The faster your hard drive operates the faster data will get transferred to your computer and vice versa. Without boggling you with comptuer jargon there's a couple of technical things you need to include on your shopping list.

Seek time - this needs to be 10ms (milliseconds) or less

Buffer size - more is better. Get a drive with at least a 4MB buffer.

RPM - higher is better. 5400rpm as a minimum. 7200rpm being preferred.

Stick to the above basic pointers and you'll do just fine.

5. Size

This is the simple part of the whole "buying an external hard drive" equation. Buy as much as you can afford. If you can afford 100GB then get it. However if you can afford 200GB then get it. Then again if you scraped together a few dollars more you could afford 300GB then do it.

This isn't a sales pitch. Far from it. There is simply no such thing as having too much data storage space. The 160GB drive that I have here was filled up in a little under a month. Currently a terabye option sounds good for my future needs.

Always add 50% to your data storage requirements. Honestly. You'll thanks yourself within the first 90 days of buying your external drive.

Hopefully now you'll be better prepared for purchasing your new external hard drive. It's one of the best purchases you'll ever make.

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