Best New Portable External Hard Drives 2012
Best Rated USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 External Hard Drives 2011 - 2012
 | Automatic, continuous backup -
Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility which amounts to
Up to 3x faster transfer rates. Amazon Price: $118.74 List Price: $229.99 |
 | Amazon Price: $143.59 List Price: $179.99 |
 | Amazon Price: Too low to display List Price: $139.99 |
 | Amazon Price: $99.99 List Price: $139.01 |
 | This is a great alternative to using an external hard drive. Just use your normal HDD with this docking station. Amazon Price: $28.95 List Price: $39.99 |
Backing Up Your Most Important Data is More Crucial than You Might Think:
Owning an external hard drive has become more affordable than ever. Now that you can get a good 1 terabyte external hard drive below $100, there's no longer any reason for you to take a chance at losing all the information that you have accumulated over the years.
Last year two hard drives on 2 computers that I work on stopped working. Crazy, huh? Luckily, my work computer was backed up by an external hard drive; however, my personal laptop wasn't. Despite having some experience in retrieving data, it was a huge hassle to try and retrieve all of the pictures, articles, and video that I had on it. Some of it simply was not retrievable, and I've been piecing it together ever since. If I'd been more careful, then I'd have saved myself a lot of time, and more importantly saved some of the pictures which I lost and can never recover.
Unless you store hours and hours of movies on your computers, you should be able to put all of your personal files, videos, and photos on a TB hard drive without a problem. While there are external hard drives out there that can hold more, for most people a terabyte is more than they'll ever use.
USB 3.0 vs 2.0 - Compatibility
I'd recommend USB 3.0 to those of you who have a lot of data that you move frequently from one computer to another. If you don't plan on moving data a lot and simply want an external hard drive for backup, then one idea would be to purchase one of the cheaper USB 2.0 models and save some money especially since your USB 2.0 device can be used in your USB 3.0 port.
What's the difference?
It's all in the speed. USB 3.0 transfers up to 10 times faster when compared to USB 2.0
What about Compatibility?
USB 2.0 devices can be used in USB 3.0 ports; however, USB 3.0 devices can only be used in USB 3.0 ports.
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Ceska 11 months ago
I bought this hard drive about 7 months ago prior to my deployment to Afghanistan. The weight and size were great. Seemed perfect. I get to afghanistan, and may have only plugged it into my Sony VAIO ten times, when suddenly it would not be recognized. Like it didn't exist. I kept unplugging it and plugging it back in. I then tried it on a bunch of other laptops. Nothing. So, I thought, maybe it's just in a "mood".