External Hard Drive?

Question

Anyone with a laptop with limited hard drive space. Do you use a external Hard Drive for other purposes beside backing up files? Like putting games, music etc. on it? Does having one to carry or use make things annoying having an external one or do you rather recommend getting a bigger internal Drive? Im thinking of getting one.Thanks!

I was going to get a low power usage Western Digital Passport 80 Gb Hard Drive to power from USB

Answer 1

I've done both. I have upgraded the internal drive to 100Mb and I have a external drive of 100Mb that uses a 2.5" drive (laptop drive). This allows me to back up the essentials from my laptop as well as having additional storage for songs when I'm on the road while the disk space on the laptop is loaded with my work programs and a game or 2 for those long trips to out of the way places.

Answer 2

External USB hard drives are the correct answer for laptops and notebooks. At this time the very small real estate of these machines prevent very large drives... plus their power consumption reduces battery time... and they get hot.

You can put a very large USB hard drive inexpensively on your system - the way you manage it is to move files from the external drive back and forth to your machine as you need them at home or the office. Generally you won't want to carry the drive around with you, but you can of course. The other benefit of these drives is that you can easily move them from machine-to-machine.

Of course for internal drives capacity increases and power needs decrease as the years march on... and at a price. The price per megabyte for internal notebook drives is considerably higher than that of external drives.

Answer 3

Thats the general concern we all have on laptops. Mine is a Compaq nx 5000 with Intel (R), Pentium PIV,1500MHz. I have an external drive of 1 GB that uses a 2.5" drive (laptop drive). This i bought seperate and i keep in the office and is for purely official presentations, shows, etc. Additionally i do carry a pockey (portable USB device in my pocket)...it is of 1 Gb for my personal use like songs, games, etc. For back up files, i create another user/log in id and copy all the important files, folder-wise, prioritising each one of them in the laptop itself.
I would rather suggest that you for in for either a portable usb or a USB of a much higher (for example 20 GB capacity) ---depending on your use or applications. Usually the covers of laptops have enough space for these types of USBs. If you are thinking of these, go in for SONY. I am not sure if a bigger inner drive would help in case of laptops. Before making up your mind go the manufacturer's site to view your options as a laptop do not have a very long life.

Answer 4

Personally, I would not recommend using external hard drive if you are using laptop. Since its a laptop, I expect you would be bringing it around.

You wouldn't be bringing a external hard disk around, would you?

Furthermore, external hard disk need an external power point, where are you going to find a external power point when you are on the move? Draining power from your USB surely won't work.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Its a brilliant idea and its much cheaper than an ipod and your in control.
Use briefcase to store your files so you can update then with one click of the mouse, also when you format it use partitions. here is a link to a the seagate site and the trouble shooter to help you set it up.

http://www.seagate.com/support/ts/external/win_detect/01_device_mgr.html

Answer 7

I prefer using internal hard drive, because the transfer rate is faster. Also, it is sort of portable. =)

Answer 8

putting in new hard drive very difficult if at all and if you get someone else to do it expensive. external drive PC mag shows you how to build your own and save

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1916862,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1765310,00.asp