Best External Hard Drive Review – Top External Harddrives!

So we all want the best, but which external harddrives are the best today? The best way to find out is to read a external hard drive review on as many of the suggested top drives to see what reviewers are saying about the drive you were thinking of getting.

But what if you have no idea what is good or even what is currently available? Well read on and we’ll bring you up to date with what you need to know…

The most popular term when searching for an external hard drive are the wel-known brand names of both Seagate and Western Digital.

These companies have been around for a very long time and have dominated the hard drive market for years. If you have ever owned a computer in the past then it’s a good bet that your internal hard drive was made by one of these two top manufacturers.

But times have changed and the market for external hard drives is huge and has expanded as more and more of us buy computers, especially laptops and notebooks. Today there is a lot more competition and this menas a much better choice for us all and lower prices too. The cost of buying hard disk storage capacity has never been better!

What’s Popular?

Today though there are many more suppliers of very good and reliable external, and of course internal, hard drives. As computers, whether in the form of a pc desktop model, a notebook, laptop or netbook, seem to now be taking over the world even in lesser developed countries then we now find that there are many different hard drive sources for us to choose from.

Other top brand names you might have heard of could include Iomega, Toshiba, LaCie, Transcend, Hitachi, Fantom, Maxtor, Lenovo and many others…

There really are now too many manufacturers of external harddrives to mention them all! What really tends to be popular is those drives that get a good external hard drive review or reviews.

These drives will then get noticed quickly by the media and personal computer magazines and soon there are favorites that every knows about and wants to check out!

Another way to to see what is good is to read reviews by customers, buyers and new owners of the external harddrives you are interested to see if they have had any problems with their drives and to discover what they really think of the external drive that they purchased.

These are the best reviews for determining what is really good, and of course bad, about a particular external drive unit.

Capacity Really Matters!

The size of your external hard drive is very important as it determines the amount of data or files that you can store on it. And there is a trend that always see capacities increase and prices reduce over time, so if you buy today then in just a few weeks time you could find the same drive at a cheaper price or at the same price, but with a higher storage capacity. So it always pays to buy the biggest external drive that you can when you are shopping for one!

Current popular sizes are in the External 1TB to 2TB range, with the 1.5 terabyte external hard drive proving very popular. Smaller sizes though are still selling well as they now retail very cheaply and you can get some really good deals as more and more larger models get realeased into the marketplace.

Best External Hard Drive?

By looking at many recent external harddrives reviews it is obvious that the LaCie d2 Quadra range of external drives are some of the best performers around.

They are available in different but large  capacities and have a good reputation for solid reliability as well as beiing supplied with good backup softare for both windows pcs and apple macs.

They also run quietly and have good connectivity with both USB and Firewire connections supplied.

You can click this link to view LaCie External Hard Drives and get the latest prices on these often recommended models. Read a review on these drives and it just might be the best external hard drive review that you are looking for!

Best Portable Drive?

This prize should probably go to the Seagate FreeAgent Go, which has continued to be a top performer in many external harddrives top ten lists and has been recommended by many reviewers as well.

It too has good reliablity and versions for both windows and mac.

It is also small and light, which is essential for a portable drive, and in addition it  has a good low cost per gigabyte rating making it good value for money!

This little portable drive continues to be a real best seller!

Networked Large Storage Drives

Most of the external hard drives you see advertised connect directly to your personal computer using a USB or firewire connection. However you can also get “Network Attached Storage” or NAS drives, which can simply be connected to a router, and therefore your local home network, using just an Ethernet cable. They can be connected in this way to either a wired or a wireless network to allow connectivity from wherever you like at home. These are great storage devices and one of the most popular is the Western Digital My Book brand.

These mass storage external harddrives are network ready and very easy to install and setup. They run quietly and are perfect for streaming your music tracks, video movies and digital photos. They really are a lot of fun! Just read any external hard drive review on NAS drive units to find out what you can do with them.

Do you need fireproof and waterproof?

Some data can be so critical that just having a backup of it is not sufficient. You may also need to ensure that the medium or external hard drive that your data is backed up to is also going to be waterproof and fireproof to minimize as many risks as possible that the data might be destroyed!

A good unit to consider for this application would be something like the IoSafe Solo extra protected external drive. It works with both pcs and macs and IoSafe specify the Solo to protect your data in a 1,550-degree Fahrenheit fire for 30 minutes and in 10 feet of both fresh and salt water for up to 3 days!

What Next ?

So there you have it a quick run down of what’s available and currently being recommended on th internet and in relevant computer magazines. Check these out first and as you learn more about what is available read a customer external hard drive review to discover the real experiences that buyers are having with these products. Then you will be able to make up your own mind about what is best for you and then buy your favorite of the external harddrives reviewed with confidence.

Don’t Forget To Backup (Frequently)!

There is a saying in the information technology and computer industry that “if it can happen, it will!” and what this means to most of us is that sometime, could be soon or at some time in the future, something will happen that will cause you to lose data, say a document, images or a video or maybe you experience the worst scenario and your internal disk dies, and then you will be sorry if you don’t have a backup. Been there too many times already. It’s a dark and frustrating place to be… Don’t let it happen to you!

EXTERNAL HARDDRIVES ARE CHEAP – PROTECT YOUR DATA!