Tuesday, January 10, 2006
In the old days, hard drives were large and couldn't fit into the computer case. Many hard drives were external, out of necessity. Then drives started getting compact, and storing them inside the computer case became the norm. With the advent of FireWire and USB 2.0, drives are crawling back out of the computer case. External drives can be found on any computer retailer's shelves. The price for an external drive ranges from $150 to $400, depending on its capacity.
The interest in external drives is driven by two primary reasons: easy backups and easy data transfer.
As the amount of data on a typical PC gets larger, the ease of doing backups -- even on CDs -- gets harder. CDs can handle just over 600MB of data, but most hard drives are now at 40GB or more. That's a lot of CDs to use for backup!
An easier and faster solution is to use an external hard drive. Plug it in -- normally via a USB or FireWire cable -- and Windows XP recognizes it as just another hard drive. You can copy your files to the hard drive, unplug it, and store it in a safe place. The process is much faster than using either CD or DVD solutions.
Recognizing that external hard drives are being used for backups, Maxtor recently came out with a line of external drives geared toward doing them. The drives have a capacity of anywhere from 160GB to 350GB. (That's a lot of data.) The drive enclosure even has a button that can be programmed to do the backup for you. Plug in the drive, push the button, and the backup automatically occurs. Pretty cool!
Regarding data transfer, suppose that you work part time at an office and the rest of the time at a client's location -- or even at home. If you work on the same projects in both places, synchronizing data between locations quickly becomes a big chore.
The solution is an external drive. If you store your data on the external drive, you can take it with you and plug it into all the systems. When you do, the data is immediately available and ready to use.
The interest in external drives is driven by two primary reasons: easy backups and easy data transfer.
As the amount of data on a typical PC gets larger, the ease of doing backups -- even on CDs -- gets harder. CDs can handle just over 600MB of data, but most hard drives are now at 40GB or more. That's a lot of CDs to use for backup!
An easier and faster solution is to use an external hard drive. Plug it in -- normally via a USB or FireWire cable -- and Windows XP recognizes it as just another hard drive. You can copy your files to the hard drive, unplug it, and store it in a safe place. The process is much faster than using either CD or DVD solutions.
Recognizing that external hard drives are being used for backups, Maxtor recently came out with a line of external drives geared toward doing them. The drives have a capacity of anywhere from 160GB to 350GB. (That's a lot of data.) The drive enclosure even has a button that can be programmed to do the backup for you. Plug in the drive, push the button, and the backup automatically occurs. Pretty cool!
Regarding data transfer, suppose that you work part time at an office and the rest of the time at a client's location -- or even at home. If you work on the same projects in both places, synchronizing data between locations quickly becomes a big chore.
The solution is an external drive. If you store your data on the external drive, you can take it with you and plug it into all the systems. When you do, the data is immediately available and ready to use.
