USB Magnetic Hard Drives Guide
The cheapest and the most capacious is a traditional magnetic storage. Because it is just a combination of common
hard drive with USB interface enclosed in external casing, you get all of the advantages of traditional hard disk,
like low per MB cost, combined with portability and hot plug features of USB.
Drives Types And Parameters
Like for internal drives, there is a big choice of drives at wide range of capacities and speeds. At the time of writing this article there are up to 500GB drives available. You can also choose between 4200rpm, 5400rmp, 7200rpm or even 10000rpm rotational speeds. External magnetic hard drives come in the same sizes as internal drives. You can choose from 5.25", 3.5", 2.5" or 1.8" sizes.
Smaller drives are more portable and comfortable but also more expensive. It all depends on your needs if it is worth paying more for smaller (both in size and capacity) drive.
Because external magnetic drives uses traditional hard drives as storage, you should pay attention to the same features like for internal drives for your laptop. To find more information about hard disks features and parameters look at our Laptop Hard Drives Guide. All information about disks interfaces, speeds, parameters and other apply also to external drives.
Most external magnetic drives cannot be powered from USB port because of higher than 0.5A current draw and the need of dual voltage powering (5V and 12V). They need external powering what increase their total weight and make them less comfortable to carry.
Drives With Backup Button
If the main purpose of external drive would be for making backups, you could consider buying drive with special backup button. It is very convenient solution. After finishing your work, you can press just one button and whole content from your laptop's internal drive is copied onto external USB hard drive. You don't have to think about it, neither spend any time doing it. After about 20 to 40 minutes, depending on your drive capacity, your backup is ready. You can use it to restore your operating system if it crashes for some reason or if your internal drive is damaged. Note that this option works only in Windows operating systems.
How Much Does It Cost
Like I mentioned before there is a big choice of drives at different prices, capacities and speeds. They are a bit more expensive than internal drives but their prices are generally comparable. The 80GB Fantom Titanium drive, which photo you can see at the top of the page, costs about $120. It works on USB 2.0 interface and features rotational speed of 7200rpm.
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