External hard drive?

[Futures Truth]

I'm curious. Whats the difference between a Portable hard drive and an external hard drive?

I currently just bought myself a new laptop, and have all the stuff on here, papers; pictures; info; music; videos i'd like to put on a external/portable harddrive just so they aren't locked to one lap top?

Is this doable through these?

Also; are the hard to use; difficult to get use to?

I was planning on getting my mom one also.

Thanks.

 

[thestepster]

I'm curious. Whats the difference between a Portable hard drive and an external hard drive?

I currently just bought myself a new laptop, and have all the stuff on here, papers; pictures; info; music; videos i'd like to put on a external/portable harddrive just so they aren't locked to one lap top?

Is this doable through these?

Also; are the hard to use; difficult to get use to?

I was planning on getting my mom one also.

Thanks.

portables are powered from the usb cable and externals have a power cable and a usb cable

 

[k4p84]

Hi

As mentioned above generally speaking a 'portable' drive will be powered by the usb port itself. These drives are low powered 2.5" laptop drives in a caddy.

A fine example would be the Western Digital Passport range that offer good £/GB.

The other offerings will be 3.5" drives. These are larger drives that will require an external power supply. The power supplied by the usb would not be enough to spin the drive up. These drives will be physically larger due to the drive form factor and be less portable due to the need to carry the additional power supply.

For static home use for back up purposed a 3.5" HDD variant is fine for the task.

If you plan on taking your files for a walk on a regular basis I would go for a portable 2.5" drive.

You will get better value for money from 3.5" externals if you are looking for large capacity, 500GB > 2TB but for general use a £60 WD Passport is great for most applications with it's 320 GB size.

Regards

Ed