Im looking to buy an external hard drive to store about a hundred gagillion music files and photos. Which one isn going to die on me and lose all of my precious data?
Well, lucky you this is a real easy one, and relatively CHEAP, too! There are two basic types of external HD’s: the small, portable drives and the larger desktop style drives. Both are literally plug and play: connect it to a USB port and you are ready to go. By desktop style, I mean something that is designed to sit on your desk, usually has an AC adapter to power it, and a USB cable to connect to any USB port on your computer. They are a little larger than the portable ones, but not huge by any stretch of the imagination. By portable, I mean ones that are literally the size of a 3 x 5 card and about 5/8 inch thick. They may also be powered directly from your computer by the USB cord itself: no AC adapter needed. Which one you need is based on what you need it for. Personally, I use the portable HD’s because they are SMALL and USB powered. I own a laptop, so the small size and lack of an extra power cord to have to carry around makes a big difference to me. Portable HD’s also mean it’
