What is external hard drive?

Are you running out of your computer’s internal storage? Want to backup your data or just take them from place to place? If so, the easiest way to manage this would be getting an external hard drive. But what’s external hard drive?

Related: External hard drive buying guide

An external hard drive is nothing more than an internal hard drive that is inserted into an enclosure and connected to your computer for additional storage. The main thing that defines external hard drive is that the drive itself is located outside of your PC case.

There are two types of external hard drives – portable and desktop. Portable drives or 2.5-inch form factor drives draw power from the same cable as they transfer data(usually USB 3.0). These drives are more compact, lightweight when compared to desktop drives and are meant for carrying around. On the other side, there are desktop external hard drives that take up a bit more space, are bulkier, but they also feature higher storage capacities. These drives are made for stationary use. They are an excellent and easy way to upgrade your systems internal storage. They feature 3.5-inch form factor and are ideal for PS4 and Xbox One consoles as a storage upgrade.

You can also get rugged external hard drives that can withstand shocks and are waterproof for extra durability. If you are always on the move and you don’t want to pay extra attention to your hard drive, just throw one into your backpack and be on your way, you should consider a rugged external hard drive.

Nowadays you can find two type external drives: hard drive and SSD or solid state drives. External SSDs are super fast and super reliable as they feature no moving parts but they are also more expensive, a lot more expensive!

Connections

USB cable isn’t the only way how to connect your external hard drive to your system. There are also such connections as FireWire, eSATA, or wireless connections. For example, we can count NAS (Network attached storage) devices and kind of external hard drives, and you access their data wirelessly.

Should you get an external hard drive?

If you want to create backups to keep safe your valuable data like family photos, documents, etc. You should get yourself an external hard drive so you can always keep a copy somewhere safe. External hard drives are also great if you run out of systems memory and want to upgrade it quick and easy. A good example is using an external hard drive in your PS4, where the internal hard drive is only 500GB for most of the users.