Portable Drive Recommendations

Take your data with you and transfer it easily between computers with a portable hard drive. If you use a PC, consider the Seagate FreeAgent Go. Customer critiques give it kudos for reliability. In addition, it has plenty of storage for the price: it’s available in 250 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB, 640 GB, 750GB and 1TB sizes. Just remember that the included backup software is for Windows only.

For Macintosh users Seagate has the FreeAgent Go for Mac with mac formatted drives and OS X compatible backup software. USB 2.0 only drives are available in 320GB, 500GB and 640GB sizes. You can add Firewire connectivity as well as USB 2.0 with the FreeAgent Go Pro for Mac in 320GB and 500GB sizes.

Seagate FreeAgent Go Video Review

If you’re looking for the simplest possible backup in a portable drive try the Clickfree . It automatically backs up your key files every time you plug it in. And it’s one of the few drives that can be used on a PC or a Mac. You can see them on Amazon

LaCie now offers their multiple connectivity options in a portable, the LaCie Rugged eSata. And, unlike it’s desktop cousins (above), no external power brick is needed as the Rugged is fully powered by the eSata cable.

Other well loved portables include Western Digital’s My Passport series and the Iomaga eGo line, although they tend to cost more per gigabyte than the Seagate FreeAgent Go.

How to Use Your External Laptop Hard Drive

A portable hard drive is relatively simple to install and use. Just plug it in and away you go! At least that’s what they told you at the store. It’s so simple that apparently you don’t even need directions. This must be the reason why they didn’t include any in the box. Now that you’ve got it home, just what exactly are you supposed to do with this thing?

First connect the drive to your computer with a USB or Firewire cable. After you’ve plugged your portable hard drive into your computer, two things will generally happen, indicating that it has been correctly plugged in. Your computer will make a beeping sound and a dialog box will appear in the lower right hand corner of your screen telling you that your computer has found new hardware.

The first time you plug your USB drive into your computer, wait a couple of minutes to let it install any drivers necessary before continuing. It will do this automatically. Once the drivers are installed, double-click your “My Computer” icon. Your portable hard drive will appear as a new drive letter. If it doesn’t show up in My Computer, try plugging it into the back of your computer. If it still doesn’t show up, you may need to partition and format your drive.

Removing Your Portable Hard Drive

Never remove your external drive from your computer while you are copying files to it. This can corrupt your data and cause you to lose your files. The safest way to remove it is to click on the “Safely Remove Hardware icon” in the lower right hand corner of your taskbar.

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