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External Hard Drives

By Craig Stephenson

External hard drives are connected to computers through the use of an external port secured to the motherboard. External hard drives are different in size and shape, however their main purpose is to store documents, video, images, audio and many other file types. The actual capacities of the drives differ from large to small. This assortment of sizes allows the consumer to choose the right external hard drive for their needs.

Historically, computer drives were large and unwieldy. Because of this, they were placed in their own casing that resided outside the computer. These hard drives fit into the category of external hard drives. As technology advanced, disk size became smaller and manufacturers could mount drives inside the computer's shell. Those who purchased computers, though, began to require more and more storage space as file sizes grew and the market for external hard drives was born.

Internally, external hard drives are relatively similar to internal hard drives. They all consist of standard disks and drive mechanisms stacked on top of each other. Because of the similarity of the internal working parts, the external casings on these drives can be quite different from manufacturer to manufacturer.

There are basically two types of external hard drives. High capacity hard drives with storage of up to two (2) terabytes or 2,000 GB and more compact portable external hard drives that generally range from 64 MB to 320 GB and include compact flash or solid-state hard drives.

The standard ports used for connecting external hard drives have differed as technology has changed. Connection ports now consist of six categories: SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment), eSATA (External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment), SCSI (Small Computer System Interface), IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics), IEEE 1394 (Firewire) and USB 1.1 and 2.0 (Universal Serial Bus). Most computers today are equipped with standard USB 2.0 ports that are backwards compatible with USB 1.1 devices and Apple Computers come standard with both Firewire and USB 2.0 ports.

High capacity external drives and portable external hard drives have two main variances. The first is storage capacity. High capacity drives hold up to two terabytes of information. Reasons for this are that they are powered by an external source and they are not limited by physical size. Multiple layers of disks and head mechanisms can be placed within the unit. Portable external hard drives are limited by their size and the fact that the computer they are connected to generally powers them. Storage size for solid-state or flash drives is simply limited by current technology because these external hard drives are actually just printed circuit boards.

Consumers looking for differences in external hard drives will find them in colors and sometimes shape. Colors of drive casings can be as varied as a manufacturer would like and shape is only limited to what can be produced by the various injection molds.

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