external hard drives

External hard drives

Although most hard drives are internal, there are also stand-alone devices calledexternal hard drives, which can backup data on computers and expand the available disk space. External drives are often stored in an enclosure that helps protect the drive and allows it to interface with the computer, usually over USB or eSATA. A great example of an external backup device that supports multiple hard drives is the Drobo.

External hard drives come in many shapes and sizes. Some are large, about the size of a book, while others are about the size of a cell phone. External hard drives can be very useful since they usually offer more space than a jump drive and are still portable. The picture to the right is an example of a laptop hard disk drive enclosurefrom Adaptec. The user may install a laptop hard drive of any storage capacity into the enclosure and connect it via USB port to the computer.