Choosing the Right External Hard Drive

I am often asked how one goes about choosing the right external hard drive. Thanks to the technical understanding required as well as the plethora of brands out there, picking the right one can be very confusing and daunting. I would say rather carefully consider the specifications and features of different models and decide on the basis of your priority. Still confused? Don’t worry! Use the following tips to choose a perfect hard drive for you:

Keep your Operating System in mind

OS X and Windows use HFS+ and NTFS file systems respectively, which is why most hard-drive manufacturers offer platform-specific models. In fact, the drives are preformatted accordingly. Make sure that you buy an external drive that is compatible with the operating system you use. 

Go for the right capacity drive

It's always tempting to buy large capacity drives. Very large drives cost more per gigabyte and may have slower mechanisms than midsize drives. Decide what performance level you need and what you willing to pay for it. If you need a massive external storage, it makes sense to buy the largest drive available.

                         

Pay attention to rotational speed

The rate at which a hard drive spins its platters is propositional to how fast it can read and write data. A drive spinning at 7200 rpm delivers superior performance than a drive spinning at 5400 rpm. You would even find some high-end desktop drives that spin their platters at 10,000 rpm.

Don’t forget about Drive Interface

Once you have decided on the speed and capacity, move one to consider how the drive will connect to your computer. Today USB is the most common interface for PCS and Macs. USB 3.0 delivers a faster data rate than USB 2.0. The newer standard is backward-compatible, which means your computer will be able to use a USB 3.0 drive even if it has only USB 2.0 ports.

Consider power consumption & noise level

Similar drives may differ considerably in power consumption and noise level. A drive that consumes more power would produce more heat, which indirectly contributes to overall system noise level as the system exhaust fans must work harder in such case. For quiet system operation, it is vital to use low power hard drives.