There truly has never been a better time to buy an External Hard Drive. With price points for mass storage at historic lows, owning an external hard drive has never been so affordable. The fierce competition however, has made choosing the right model for your needs a bit daunting. Our Buyer’s Guide will help to make you a savvier consumer and help you navigate the through the wide array of External Hard Drives available today.

Becoming a savvy, educated shopper means not only knowing your budget but also asking yourself the right questions about how you intend to use your Hard Drive. Here are some questions to keep in mind as you work through our buyers guide:

• What is your budget? Be as specific as possible.
• How much storage space are you looking for?
• What type of media do you mainly plan to store on the drive?
• Is this External Hard Drive going to be shared by more than one computer?
• Is the Drive for a Desktop or Laptop?
• How important is portability?

With some of these questions in mind, we will now take you step by step through the some of the most important aspects of choosing an External Hard Drive most suitable for your needs.

Storage Capacity

Measured in Gigabytes (GB) or Terabytes (TB), this is the Amount of data that a hard drive can hold. One Terabyte is equal to 1000 Gigabytes.

Your storage needs will mostly be determined by the type of files you intend to store. For text, audio, and picture files we suggest a storage capacity of no less than 250 Gigabytes. If you plan on housing a video library, using the drive as a DVR, sharing the hard drive between more than two computers, or have other large storage needs, then look for a drive with no less than 500 Gigabytes (GB). A general rule of thumb is to at least try to double your current storage capacity.

Cache Buffer Size

Measured in Megabytes (MB), Drives temporarily store data in a memory buffer (or cache) because the device can read from the buffer faster than the drive's platter. A larger buffer can noticeably enhance drive performance. We suggest looking for a drive with an 8MB or 16MB buffer especially in applications where response time is critical such as video editing and gaming applications.

Rotation Speed

Measured in Revolutions per minute (RPM), this is the speed at which the disk spins and is one of the most important factors to consider when purchasing an external hard drive. The higher rpm, the faster the hard drive can retrieve data. The standard external hard drive runs at 5400rpm. We suggest looking for one with 7200RPM. If you are running data intensive operations such as video editing or high end gaming platforms, we recommend investigating external hard drives with an RPM of 10000 or more.

Port/Interface Type

Connectivity is an important factor in considering an external hard drive is. Most external drives connect to your computer via UBS 2.0 or FireWire Ports with FireWire being the speedier of the two. Some other interface options include:

External Serial ATA interface (eSATA)

A growing number of drives also include an external Serial ATA (eSATA) interface. This type of interface is capable of transfer rates up to 2 times that of FireWire and USB connections and may be worth considering for high end applications such as professional video editing. External SATA drives usually require that you install a PCI card (sometimes bundled with the drive) in your desktop computer or an ExpressCard in your notebook computer in order to connect the drive, however.

Powered FireWire/ Powered USB

If you are on the road a lot and are buying an external hard drive to connect your laptop, consider investing in a powered FireWire or Powered USB Drive. These drives derive their power from the laptop itself which eliminates the need to carry an extra power adapter.

Summary

With price points continually coming down and feature sets continually going up, it is a great time to purchase a External Hard Drive. With all of the above considerations in hand you should now be better equipped to make an more informed choice when choosing a External Hard Drive that best suits your needs.