What Is an External Hard Drive ?

External hard drives are also generally moved around more than internal ones, causing them to fail more easily due to mechanical damage. SSD based drives, like flash drives, are less prone to this sort of damage.

Using an external hard drive is as easy as plugging one end of the data cable into the drive as well as to the matching end on the computer, like the USB port in the case of USB-based external drives.

If a power cable is required, it will need to be plugged into a wall outlet.

Normally, on most computers, it takes just a few moments before the contents of the external drive will appear on-screen, at which point you can begin moving files to and from the drive.

When it comes to the software side of things, you can use an external hard drive in nearly the exact same way as you would an internal one. The only difference is how you access the drive in your operating system.

However, an external hard drive appears as a second hard drive and therefore is accessed in a slightly different manner. In Windows, for example, external drives are listed next to the other devices in Windows Explorer and Disk Management.

Just like with internal hard drives, external hard drives come in all shapes and sizes, so they're also available in many different prices.

You need to first identify what you'll use the hard drive for. This is referring to both the environment you'll use it in and the stuff you'll put on it.

Another thing to think about is how much storage space you'll need. If you'll be keeping lots of HD videos on it, you need to get something with a lot more storage capacity than an external drive that'll just be used for hoarding documents for school.

Here's a general guideline you can follow, depending on what you'll be storing on the external HDD, to know how much space you might need:

Start with a disk space analyzer tool to scan your current hard drive to see how much storage space is being occupied by the files you're planning on moving over to the new HDD, and then double that number to be safe.