Rosa Holloway's Blog

External Hard Drives come in several sizes and types.  Amazon.com lists 1,571 different external hard drives to choose from.  This is not including flash drives (or thumb drives) that use a different type of storage memory… there are another 28,722 of those listed.  Flash drives are generally limited to less than 64GB in capacity, where external hard drives hold up to 2 TB (Terabytes).

The major external hard drive sizes are either 3.5” (as inside most desktop computers) or 2.5” (as inside most laptop computers).  Most USB 2.5” hard drives do not require any external power source, so they are great for portability and easily fit into a pocket.  The primary types of external hard drives are USB, SATA, or Ethernet.  Ethernet drives are generally of the 3.5” size and require an AC adapter, however, they can be easily shared on a network so that multiple computers have access without having to unplug and physically connect to each computer.

Whichever type of external hard drive you use, you should remember that they are also susceptible to failure.  Remember to backup your external drive if you are using it for expansion.  And if you use one to backup your computer, remember to check it occasionally to make sure the data is retrievable – or even keep a backup of your backup.