A Beginner’s Guide to External Hard Drives
Not too long ago, computers were sold with very small hard drives compared to today’s standards. A 5 or 10 gigabyte hard drive was all that was needed back then, because the software and games didn’t take up too much space. Fast forward 10 years, and now we are demanding much more from our computers. We want our computers to store tons of movies, games, music, and pictures. Those things take up lots of space on a computer’s hard drive, and before you know it you see that dreaded little yellow bubble pop up from the bottom-right corner of your screen saying “LOW DISK SPACE! RUN DISK CLEANUP NOW!”.
Enter the External Hard Drive. External hard drives are great for storing your music, movies, pictures, and whatever else you want to store on them. An external hard drive plugs right into a USB port on a computer, so you can take it with you wherever you go. Plus, you don’t have to install any special software for external hard drives because the software is already built into Windows and Mac. They are very portable and easy to use.
Why use an external hard drive? – If your computer’s hard drive has a lot of files, it can slow your computer down dramatically. To speed up your computer, you can transfer files such as photos, music, videos, games, and documents to an external hard drive to free up some space on your computer’s hard drive. An external hard drive can also be used to back up important files in case your computer crashes, such as work documents or digital photos. An external hard drive can also be used to backup your computer’s hard drive.
How much storage space would I need? – External hard drives come in a variety of sizes. They can be as small as 250 gigabytes
Should I get a USB or FireWire External Hard Drive? USB and FireWire are very similar speed wise. In some cases, FireWire is just a little bit faster than USB. However, USB external hard drives