Comparison of 6 external hard drives

An external hard drive, sure, but what are its uses?
In this comparison we have tested six external hard drives with these S-ATA II devices having storage capacity of between 500 GB and 1.5 TB, aimed mainly at home users who simply need to connect it to the correct port for it to be immediately available. These devices can offer numerous functions, with the backup of your entire hard drive and personal data being a big positive, or even just the files that you want. They can also be used to share files between your PC, Mac, Linux machine or laptop. You can choose to store only your multimedia and personal files, and in the event that the machine is infected then you simply need to reinstall the operating system without worrying about your personal documents which will be safe on your external hard drive. These peripherals are rather light, weighing no more then 1.5 kg. Thanks to this, they are mobile and can take some bumps between your home, work or friends places.

The connectivity choice shouldn’t be neglected!
While some external hard drives only offer a USB connection, here this is certainly not the case! The user can choose to transfer their data at slower speeds using a USB 2.0 adaptor (33 MB/s on average), FireWire 400 (40 MB/s), FireWire 800 for Mac’s mostly (55 MB/s) and eSATA which we recommend (95 MB/s)! Having numerous connectivity options is essential. This allows you to adapt to any host machine, selecting the appropriate connectivity speed, which means the most effective transfer speeds.

The provided applications
These are generally automatically installed when you connect the device to a PC/Mac for the first time. The manufacturers have often created these in a PC version, with the Mac version being seen less often. Generally there is an automatic (scheduling) and manual data backup program, another synchronization program and a file encryption program. At times you will even find excellent configuration tools (formatting, disk surface test, standby management, led light settings…).

The Box’s content and average prices
The manufacturers are not all equal. Some will provide you with refined boxes made of aluminium with heat sinks and which are extremely silent… while others offer mediocre supports which in some cases are inexistent. For the cables, all models come with a USB and FireWire cable. On the other hand, you won’t always get an eSATA cable provided. You may therefore have to purchase your own eSATA cable, well insulated for better performance (between 7 and $14). In terms of price, you will be looking at around $105 for a 500 GB version, $220 for the 1 TB hard drives and $265 for the 1.5 TB versions.