Selecting an External Hard Drive
External hard drives offer a means of storing electronic files on a portable device separate from your computer. Whether for backup purposes or simply to free up space on your computer, you can store files, music, movies, pictures, and documents on them. There are plenty of options for external hard drives so you can be sure to find one to suit your purposes.
How Much Storage Space Is There on an External Hard Drive?
Available in a variety of capacities from 100 GB up to 3 TB, there are plenty of sizes. Maxtor produces a selection of 300 GB hard drives in a variety of colors and styles. A 300 GB hard drive holds plenty of photos and files.
- One 300 GB drive holds approximately 40,000 MP3 songs.
- Depending on the resolution of the photos, they can store between 300,000 and 30,000 pictures.
- You can hold hundreds of thousands of word processing, PDF, and spreadsheet files on just one drive.
How Can I Use an External Hard Drive?
External hard drives plug into your computer, TV, or other technological device's USB port through a USB cord. You can use external drives to access storage not kept on the main disk of your computer. Often, this is for a number of reasons.
- Security concerns may mean you wish to keep sensitive information stored on external drives. You can plug them in easily and they are very lightweight and portable. You can also set up their technology to be password protected for extra layers of privacy.
- Hard drives are an easy way to carry and store information. They are a little more robust and easily portable than a computer and don't require charging or any other technology other than a USB cord.
- They're a means of space saving. You can store large files or those you access less frequently on your drive in order to keep space free on your computer. They're also a good means of backup, knowing that if someone ever steals your computer, you have a hard drive with all your essential information safely stored.
How Easy Is It to Access My Information?
External drives operate by spinning platters inside, which results in so many revolutions per minute (RPM). This links to the amount of time or speed in which you can read or write files. Generally, this means your documents transfer almost instantly, while larger collections of music, photo, or video files will take a few moments.
- A 7200 RPM hard drive, such as the Maxtor One Touch 300 GB external hard drive, copy at a speed of approximately 300 Mbps.
- Once you plug the hard drive into your computer or TV, you can instantly access information stored on the drive.
- There is no wait time or loading time required to play or open files.