Portable Hard Drives

JOEY

Hi
I want to buy a portable hard drive to keep my important documents on in case anything happens to my computer.

Can anyone recommend one or what I should be looking for in spec please.

Thank you

colin79666

Western Digital Elements
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elements-Capacity-Portable-Drive-Windows/dp/B00CRZ2PRM/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1408269405&sr=1-3&keywords=western+digital

If you don't need so much space and portability is of more importance then you can get 128gb USB thumb drives for sensible prices these days.

If your laptop/PC supports USB 3 then definitely avoid USB 2 drives as they will be much slower. Encryption is a nice to have but you can get that 3rd party anyway.

JOEY

Thanks Colin
I would prefer more memory with portability a secondary issue.
Is there a way to find out if my PC asupports USB 3

colin79666

JOEY wrote: »

Thanks Colin
I would prefer more memory with portability a secondary issue.
Is there a way to find out if my PC asupports USB 3

If your PC was made in the last year it will probably have a few USB 3. If older probably not but they could probably be added with an expansion card. USB 3 usually has a blue bit in the middle. Have a look here for a picture of each:


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USB_2_and_3.jpg

JOEY

Thanks Colin
I'm USB 2 so I shall look for a hard drive compatible with that

Tyler_Du

JOEY wrote: »

Thanks Colin
I'm USB 2 so I shall look for a hard drive compatible with that

As previously said unless you're going to be dealing with video files, raw photo files, etc a usb pen stick would probably be better for your needs and will be much more robust than a hard drive, just don't get one from ebay, stick to amazon (not a seller) or the high street stores (will pay more here)

If you need 15gb or less you can get free cloud storage from the likes of Microsoft /Google (and others)

colin79666

JOEY wrote: »

Thanks Colin
I'm USB 2 so I shall look for a hard drive compatible with that

Any USB 3 drive will be backwards compatible. I'd go with USB 3 as the cost difference is negligible and you can take advantage of it in future if you upgrade/replace your machine.

Yorkie1

Tyler_Durden_UK wrote: »

As previously said unless you're going to be dealing with video files, raw photo files, etc a usb pen stick would probably be better for your needs and will be much more robust than a hard drive, just don't get one from ebay, stick to amazon (not a seller) or the high street stores (will pay more here)

If you need 15gb or less you can get free cloud storage from the likes of Microsoft /Google (and others)

Could you explain why you think a USB pen stick would be more robust than a USB hard drive, please?

I_have_spoken

No moving parts.

A._Badger

I_have_spoken wrote: »

No moving parts.

Both USB memory sticks and solid state drives are regarded as less reliable by archiving specialists. Interestingly, despite the 'lack of moving parts' solid state memory has a finite life with use - it actually wears out.

Morevover, when it fails it is far harder to recover data from solid state memory - often impossible.

A decent quality hard drive is still regarded as a more reliable alternative.

Chino

Tyler_Durden_UK wrote: »

and will be much more robust than a hard drive

Not in my experience.

I have managed to kill two USB flash drives by attempting to write very large files to them. On both occasions the write proceeded normally until about a third of the file had been written, at which point an error occurred. After this, the flash drive became unusable. Searching forums after the event indicated that this is not an unknown problem with flash drives.