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USB Hard Drives - Guide
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| Speed: | Up to 60 MB/sec |
| Capacity: | 20GB - 500GB |
| Portability: | Low |
| Interface: | USB port |
| Price: | Start at $120 |
| Installation: | USB Cable required |
The external USB hard drives are probably the most common today simply because almost every recent or current laptop has 1 or more USB ports built-in. The speed of the data transfer for the USB Hard Drives depends on the USB interface type.
The
'Hi-Speed' symbol stands for the USB 2.0 interface that
allows a transfer rate up to 60MB/sec. These drives can
be used to store digital movies and photographs, music,
games and to back-up data.
If your drive has this symbol
displayed it means it has an older USB 1.1 or 1.0
interface with the transfer rates of 1.5MB/sec and
0.19MB/sec respectively. USB 2.0 drives are backward
compatible with laptops equipped with USB 1.x ports.
USB 2.0 drives are up to 40 times faster than USB 1.1 drives.
Example: if your hard drive size is 60GB then
theoretically it'll take 60,000MB / 60MB/sec = 17 min to
transfer your entire internal drive to a USB external
drive. (In reality, the actual transfer rate is about
40MB/s or 70-66% of the maximum interface rate)
USB
ports are usually stocked up by two or four and have this symbol displayed next to them:
Laptops manufactured before 1996 do not include USB.
Laptops manufactured in 1997 or later may support USB 1.0.
Laptops manufactured after 1998 support USB 1.0.
Laptops available since 2001 probably support USB 2.0.
If your laptop is not equipped with a USB port, you may
need to connect an USB adapter (PCI or CardBus) to connect USB
peripherals.
USB Hard Drives offer the most affordable storage solutions for laptops. On average, they cost less then the same capacity FireWire drives or the lower capacity PCMCIA hard drives.
This table presents the most common capacities for the USB Hard Drives and their average prices:
| Capacity | Price, US$ | *Notice that 20GB drives are mainly portable and are actually more expensive | |
| 20GB* | 145 | ||
| 40GB | 130 | ||
| 60 | 150 | ||
| 80 | 170 | ||
| 100 | 250 | ||
| 120 | 270 |
You can Plug and Play USB external hard drives without rebooting your laptop. USB devices allow "hot-swapping" so you don't need to shut down and restart your laptop each time you're attaching a USB drive - just plug it in at any time. Your laptop will detect the drive and configure it automatically.
Most of the USB drives do not require any additional power source (such as batteries or an AC adapter) because all necessary power is drawn through the USB cable plugged into the USB port." Check these USB Hard Drives examples.
Do not throw out your old internal hard
drive - you can easily convert it into an external USB hard drive.
First, get a portable external USB hard drive kit. See examples of USB hard drives kits. (Make sure you're getting the right kit size: for 2.5" or for 3.5" internal drive.)
Then, insert your internal hard drive into the enclosure, close the cover... Done.
For Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 or NT go to www.usb.org/data/usbready.exe to download a free USB evaluation utility and to determine your system's USB capabilities. This program will examine your system and inform you of your laptop's USB capabilities. You'll find out if you have USB 2.0 or 1.1.
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