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External Hard Drives
Picking an external Hard Drive:
External Hard Drives
External Hard Drives are indeed a handy addition to any computer user�s desk. The price of storage has gone down considerably in the last 2-3 years so these drives are becoming very popular. As a typical rule of thumb I like to recommend external hard drives that:
1.Operates quietly (read user reviews)
2.Have an on and off switch � believe it or not some don�t!
3.Have some kind of cooling mechanism � small fans are usually a good feature on an external hard drive.
4.Ample capacity � that�s right don�t skimp on the capacity. This drive should at a very minimum cover 1.5 times the amount of storage your actual hard drive has. For example if your Laptop or Desktop has a 120 gigabyte hard drive I recommend a 180 gigabyte or better external hard drive. (more on this later)
These recommendations are very general but theses are all tried and true features that I feel are necessary in most instances.
Why Should I Purchase an External Hard Drive?
This is a great question. IF you already have enough storage on your machine why would you need even more?! The answer is simple, for data backups and failover storage. That�s right, these drives are excellent in that they offer a secondary location to store valuable pictures, music, documents, and other vital data.
Which Manufacturer Makes the Best External Drives?
In my opinion, Maxtor and Seagate offer the best external drives for your buck. As of the time of this writing, The Maxtor MyBook II 500 gigabyte drive will run you roughly $150.00 and the Seagate 500 gigabyte Free Agent is a viable candidate as well. This too should set you back around $150.00.
Where Should I Shop?
I personally use www.amazon.com and www.newegg.com for all of my computer peripheral purchases. Why you ask? I choose these sites because I love reading user feedback before I purchase a product. Going to a retail outlet is just not the same! This is truly an unbiased recommendation as I am not affiliated in any way with either of these sites.
What Are You Waiting For?
Well, go ahead go grab yourself a quality external hard drive and start your backup plan today! Remember take some time now and setup your data backup scheme to prevent the huge expense of data recovery down the road!