"Types of drives" means
the type of connection that is used to hook a drive into your computer. This is
done using ports. Also called interfaces, ports are external connections
at the back of your computer (sort of like electrical outlets) that allow you
to connect devices to your machine. Without ports, external devices can
communicate with your computer.
The two most popular ways to
connect a portable hard drive to a PC are Universal Serial Bus and FireWire.
Universal Serial Bus
Universal Serial Bus (USB)
supports high-speed data transfers, at rates up to 12 Mbps (12 million bits per
second). You can connect up to 127 devices, ranging from keyboards to modems to
drives, to one USB port on your computer. As well, USB also supports
Plug-and-Play installation and hot swapping. Plug and play simply means that
once you plug the device in, your computer automatically detects it. Hot
swapping allows you to move a USB device from one computer to another without
having to reboot the machine. On top of that, your computer's USB port supplies
power to the drive.
FireWire
Next up is FireWire, also called
IEEE 1394 (the technical standard used to designate these devices). FireWire is
extremely fast, supporting data transfers of up to 400 Mbps (400 million bits
per second). Like USB, FireWire support hot swapping of devices and receives it
power from your computer. While fast, FireWire devices can be expensive. But
they're great for transferring data, like video and audio, which require a lot
of bandwidth.
What's On the Market
Going portable has become quite
popular. To meet the demand for portable hard drives, a number of companies
have entered the market.
Two of the best-known makers of
portable drives are LaCie and Iomega. Amacom is a smaller company, but it does
manufacture one of the most versatile portable drives that's currently
available.
Two other companies that make nice
portable hard drives are MicroSolutions, known for its Backpack series of hard
drives, and Archos Technology. Archos is known for its MP3 players, but its
portable drives are small and can hold a lot of data.
Of course, if you just need to
move a lot of files from computer to computer, you should check out the
offerings from TREKSTOR. The company's ThumbDrives are USB devices that are the
size of a human thumb.