external hard drive question

anniecave

I want to get a second external hard drive to use with my current laptop (vista) but that will be usable if I upgrade to windows 7 (or buy a new laptop with windows 7 on)

I'm looking at amazon, and play.com and on some comparison websites, and some of the items say they are only compatible with certain versions of windows.

Is that just the software that would not be not compatible?

I just want somewhere to copy my data too, I don't want to use any backup software.

Other products don't list any software requirements- so can I assume these will work with both Vista and whatever microsoft operating system I might get when I have to buy a new laptop when my current one dies ?

Any help/pointers gratefully received!

HO87

If you use your external hard drive to copy files to and from and its a standard USB type then it will be as compatible with W7 as it is with Vista.

I use mine across operating systems from Mac to Windows and with Linux - no problems with interchanging it at all.

jayme1

yep they should all work 100%, doesnt metter if they are FAT32 or NTFS (NTFS is strictly better if you are only going to be using it on windows computers)

the reason it will say only compatible to vista is just because they havent updated it.

also you dont need to have any software that comes with the device (I just delete the included software) if you are just going to use it for putting files on it (like a thumb drive) then all you need to do is plug it into the computer and copy the files.

anniecave

Thanks for your help. I just wanted to check I did understand what was going on!

davb

A few of the major drive vendors do lower priced ranges branded as elements etc. These are not usually cheaper hardware, but just don't come bundled with backup or encryption software, special partitions etc - so if you just want storage, these can be a good option.

diable

By a dual drive NAS

cat amongst pigeons lol