External HDD

What would you be using this external drive for and how much space would you need it to be as you have a few options.


1. Ultra portable HDs that power via USB, these are small and light and do not need external power, smaller capacities though in the 250GB and below range, great for moving between loacations

WD Passport drives as an example of these, but Seagate etc all make small USB powered external HDs ( these are my fave )
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=262

2. Large external drives, still portable, but are generally larger and heavier than ultra portables and have a secondary power pack, upwards to 500GB+ range for capacity, not as easy as the small ultra portables to lug around as they are more desktop externals, but do offer larger storage as a plus

WD My Books
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=224



*note capacities are off top of my head to what I know personally available, other makers or indeed WD may have larger.

 

Firewire, USB and eSATA are all connection types, save me typing a lot, I lazy and will link to descriptions on WIKI

Firewire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire

USB
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB

eSATA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

USB is the main common one, but eSATA is becoming more popular on mid to high end motherboards, but not noticed many eSATA externals as yet, but then I not looked either.

The main differences are basicall in transfer speeds, under Comparisons with other interfaces in the eSATA wiki page you have a table of the transfer speeds each of them max out at.

How much data do you have to transfer aready to go from your main HDD now? if over 100GB then a larger drive is worth it, however, what I decided to do and more for portability was to go with WD Passport drives and get a few of them in the 120-160GB range ( didnt have the 250GB avail at the time ) and put Music on one, Images on another and General backups and data on the third.

Choice also depends on if your going to be moving this external around between PCs in the house or friends PC etc or just needing a personal backup drive for say your desktop and laptop?


If needing to be really portable then many the multiple small USB powered HDs would be best option, if not needing to move the external HDD around alot then the likes of the MY BOOKS are perfect for upwards of 500GB storage, or Get a 300GB+ Powered MY Book type HDD and a small 80-100GB passport drive for times when you need to easily move data from PCs adn various locations, say school, work, Uni, friends etc

All comes down to what you wish to spend too, but I have hopefully given you some ideas to work with.

 

May have been true with older HDs but the modern ones, can and are happy vertical or Horizontal, many PC makers do have drives located in the smaller PC cases in the horizontal position.

Heads on HDs dont wear out as they do not touch the drive platters if they did you would have data corruption and a dead HD as if a drive head hits platter it goes crunch....... they float above the platters.

I'd be a bit buggered with the portable HD I have hooked to my PC now as its at a 30deg angle and at times if hooked to laptop could be in any position.

 

Yes you would need if your motherboard does not have an external eSATA port on the back an eSATA controller PCI card.

Yes eSATA is quicker for data transfer than that of Firewire and USB2.0, noticable I dont know as I dont have both as yet to compaire but in the data of the two connections and reading a few reviews then yes you will see a ballpark 30-40% data transfer speed increase over USB, as real world figures over the max the connection types will do vary.

eSATA externals are though more expensive than USB, that coupled with the cost of a eSATA PCI controller card as well.