Member Avatar for erinc7

I am new to the hard drive world, but would like to purchase a portable external hard drive to store music and video files. I will be on the road for long stretches (work related) and thought this would be the best way to take my entire cd collection with me.

I'm looking for about 250GB. I will be using a laptop PC.

I've noticed that you can buy a single unit or purchase the hard drive (insides) and then a case.

Can someone please explain the pro's and con's of each (single unit vs. drive and case)?

Can you please recommend some external hard drives that are very portable?

Thanks in advance.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Steveo_6464

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— good question. Building on points from and , here are practical, travel-focused things people often miss when picking between a prebuilt external drive and buying a drive + enclosure.

Prebuilt externals: easiest to use — plug, format, go. Pros are convenience, tested enclosure fit, and a single-RMA path. Cons are less flexibility (proprietary cases, nonstandard cables) and sometimes shorter or different warranty handling than the internal drive maker. If you value zero-assembly and a tidy single unit, this is the simplest route.

Drive + enclosure: gives you control over drive brand, RPM, cache size and enclosure features (bus-powered vs AC, eSATA/FireWire support, hardware crypto). It can be better value and upgradeable, but you must match form factor and interface and shop for a decent enclosure (cheap enclosures have flaky power, poor cooling, or weak connectors). Note: some bus-powered enclosures need a Y-USB cable or dual-port plug if one USB port cannot supply enough current.

Travel-specific considerations: for long stints on the road weight, power draw and shock resistance matter most. 2.5" laptop drives (or flash/SSD) are lighter, bus-powered and tolerate movement better. 7200 rpm drives transfer faster but make more heat, draw more power and are a bit less forgiving on bumps; 5400 rpm models are quieter and kinder to laptop battery life. Always carry the drive in a padded sleeve, never transport it while powered, and safely eject before unplugging.

Compatibility and safety: pick a filesystem for your workflow (NTFS for Windows-only, exFAT for large files across OSes; FAT32 has a 4GB-per-file limit). Encrypt sensitive music or personal files with hardware encryption or software (BitLocker, VeraCrypt). Finally, keep a second copy — portable drives fail or get lost, so mirror critical data to a second drive or cloud backup.

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Member Avatar for nizzy1115

Ok basically there are 2 different kinds of hard drives. Laptop hard drives (which are 2.5 inches) and desktop hard drives (which are 3.5 inches). Laptop hard drives are much smaller in physical size, but are much more expensive, and the largest laptop hard drive i know of is 120 gb. Desktop hard drives are bigger in physical size, but are cheaper and can come in larger storage sizes (750gb). Each of these hard drives can be stuck in a case with a usb plug on them for portability. However, most 3.5" desktop hard drives in external enclosures need an extra power source (ac wall outlet) to power them so that makes traveling with them not so good (for size, and their power requirements). Laptop 2.5 hard drives can be bought and stuck in external inclousers or bought already in an external inclosure, and they do not require an extra powersupply to be pluged into them, the usb port is enough. So a usb 2.5" laptop hard drive in an external enclosure is probably your best bet for portability, but their sizes are pretty small.

example:

40 gb for $110

60 gb for $115 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136019

80 gb for $135

100gb for $170 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822154407

120 gb for $215

As you can see, the 80gb wd passport seems to be the best deal for price vs size. Hope this helped a little.

Member Avatar for Steveo_6464

I got a 250 gb hard drive, with an enclosure for $99 at TigerDirect.com. Pretty good deal. Works great so far!

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