which one is better and why? a ready made portable Hard Drive or an internal HD that you turn into a portable?

Question

i was recently at Fry's Electronics and i noticed that the internal HD were really cheap (i'm talking about the 300GB-750GB) compared to the portable ones. but the portables were selling a lot faster and a lot more than the internals. why is this? is the ready made external Hard Drive better than getting an internal HD and converting it into an external HD? or is it the other way around and people just don't want to deal with the hassle of putting the thing together?

Answer 1

There is a sutble difference between portable HD and portable enclosures. Portable HD will often come with easy backup software. I am sure you see them advertised on boxes as one-touch backup. This is probably the only difference, other than the obvious that you can customize the size of hard drives on the fly with a portable enclosure.

The reason why the portable HD sell faster is because of convenience of use and setup. Most people get confused or nervous about buying a hard drive and installing it in a box. While it sounds simple to the savvy, it's quite intimidating to most people.

Another danger is the cheaper portable enclosures don't have cooling fans, which means putting a fast 7200rpm or god forbit a 10,000 hard drive can overheat and cause you problems. Buying an already made portable HD, you know it has been tested and it will work under any conditions.

I like the enclosures because they are sleek and more portable. You just need to be more gentle with them compared to portable HD.

Answer 2

External is more popular and conveinent, is probably why they are selling faster. That's just because they are made for normal wear and tear, internals are not. If you did go with the internal, you would have to be very careflul about where you set it etc. But whichever you chose, it won't make that much difference.