Monday, January 4, 2010

Connecting the Right External Hard Drive Types

By Peter Reynolds

When looking for backup options for your computer, an external hard drive is a good solution. Today, there are many external hard drive types to choose from. Although it may seem like a hard drive is a simple thing to choose, sometimes the choices can be daunting. Understanding which hard drive types are right for you requires a little research.

External hard drives provide additional space for your documents and files on your computer. They work outside of your computer and are often portable. How you need to connect your external hard drive to your computer, might determine which hard drive is right for you.

The most popular way of connecting the computer to the external drive is through a USB. This is one of the most standard for many external drives and can function in two speeds. These connections can go faster than the speed of 2.0 and can transfer up to 480 megabits per second.

Firewire is highly demanded in regards to connecting the external hard drives to a computer. This very popular connection, Firewire, can connect very large files as well as multimedia because of the isochronous data transfer that it contains. Before USB 2.0 it was the only fast connection available. Specific ports on your computer are required for Firewire to be operable.

The newest standard in connecting external hard drives is called the eSATA. This connection actually enables speeds up to 6x the speed of USB or Firewire. This fast connection speed makes it much easier to transfer large files. This is being installed on many computers, but there are several older computers that do not have these adapters used for this faster connection.

External hard drive types can be overwhelming when it comes to choosing one that is best for your needs. It would help if you knew the exact connections that are available and what adapters your computer has. Knowing these things can help you when you buy your external hard drive. - 22787

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