External Hard Drive: Portable vs Non Portable

RaZr

RaZr

New Member
Hey everyone,
I am planning to buy a new external harddrive for everyday use like movies, music,pictures etc. I will be connecting it to my xbox mostly to watch movies. Now i had Western Digital Elements 1TB and it only lasted for a year. There are two types that am confused between the portable ones (which are smaller in size) and regular big ones. If you guys could tell me if there is any other difference than the obvious size difference? I know portable cost just a bit more. But is there any speed difference. Also does big ones last longer than portables? Also which one you guys recommend? I was looking to buy for under $150. Size 500 GB - 1 TB.
Thanks
 
The smaller portable ones are laptop size drives, and they normally run at 5400RPM so they're a bit on the slow side. As far as reliability, it's a hit and a miss. WD MyBooks are very reliable as I have several of them at work and have used them for years.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
The smaller portable ones are laptop size drives, and they normally run at 5400RPM so they're a bit on the slow side. As far as reliability, it's a hit and a miss. WD MyBooks are very reliable as I have several of them at work and have used them for years.
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thanks for ur reply.....so u sure about small portable ones like this: http://www.amazon.ca/Western-Digita...6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1304901244&sr=1-6 .... will run slow compare to my books? which r bigger. Also wht size u recommend 1tb or 500 gb? cuz price diff is not much. Thanks
 
I've also been using WD external drives for years. The difference in size also affects the cooling. I bought an Acom portable drive which has limited ventilation and gets extremely hot in summer with prolonged use. The WD (USB) drives interface better with a PC starting up and shutting down (no action required). My portable drive is more of a nuisance in those situations but that is not a big issue if portability is the main use. The drive had to be turned on after the PC has booted otherwise it was not recognized. Other brands/models may be more user-friendly.
 
Might as well spend the extra money for the 1tb drive to ensure you have enough room for storage.

Also 2.5 inch drives (portable hard drives) run at 5400 rpm some 3.5 inch drives run at 7200 rpm or faster.

smaller drives have little to no ventilation that might be an issue if you keep it running all the time.

if you need it to be portable and you won't use it for extented period of time get a 2.5 inch drive.
 
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