Comex 2013 - Cameras, Printers, Storage & Monitors Buying Guide
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External Storage
External Storage Deals at the Show
Here are some highlighted external storage deals at Comex this year.
Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt (1TB) Comex 2013 Offer
Location Hall 5, Booth 5701 |
Western Digital My Passport Ultra (1TB) Comex 2013 Offer
Location Hall 6, Booth 6521 |
Seagate 2.5" Backup Plus (1TB) Comex 2013 Offer
Location Hall 6, Booth 6431F Hall 5, Booth 5421 |
Seagate Backup Plus Desk (4TB) Comex 2013 Offer
Location Hall 6, Booth 6431F Hall 5, Booth 5421 |
Western Digital VelociRaptor Duo (2TB) Comex 2013 Offer
Location Hall 5, Booth 5701
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Synology DS413 Comex 2013 Offer
Location Hall 6, Booth 6426 Hall 5, Booth 5444 |
Comex 2013 External Storage Portal
External Storage Buying Guide
Whether you are looking for an internal or external hard drive, you would be spoiled for choice at PC Show 2013. Look around you and you would be amazed and dazzled by the sheer selection of drives. Read on as we give you some tips on choosing a drive that’s right for you and also show you some of the standout deals from the show.
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES TODAY
External hard drives can be broadly divided into three categories - desktop drives, portable drives and network-attached storage. Desktop drives are so-called because they require an external power source (typically from a power socket) and usually employ the use of larger 3.5-inch hard drives inside them. They sacrifice portability for storage and you can find drives with as much as 8TB of storage space. Portable hard drives do not require an external power source and are smaller in capacity, usually topping out at 2TB. Inside these drives, you will find a 2.5-inch mechanical hard disk. Finally, network-attached storage are like desktop drives except that they are specialized computers that function as file servers so that data can be shared amongst clients on a network.
Desktop drives require an external power source to work, hence the name. They typically come with larger capacities, with high-end ones having as much as 8TB of storage space and can even be configured in RAID 0 or 1 configurations for performance or redundancy. |
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Portable drives are highly portable and typically come in 500GB, 1TB or 2TB of storage. Their portability makes them ideal for transferring large files between systems or as an expansion drive for your notebook. |
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Network-attached storage drives are ideal for users who need to share data frequently amongst many systems on a network. These drives are typically meant for enthusiasts or SOHO users. Their capacity is dependent on how many drive bays they have, and they often have security features built into them. |
WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR
Capacity: As with all things storage-related, be sure to get an external hard disk that fits your storage requirements. These devices are not meant to be user-upgradeable, so you want to get the largest one possible to maximize your spending. For NAS drives, pick one that has enough drive bays to allow for future expansion. NAS meant for home and SOHO usage typically offer two to four drive bays.
Interface: The standard interface for most external hard drives today is USB 3.0. However, do take note that your system needs to have USB 3.0 ports to be able to take advantage of USB 3.0’s speed advantage. USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0.
Thunderbolt is the latest high-speed interface that’s capable of up to 20Gbps of throughput (considering bidirectional transfers). This is many times faster than USB 3.0 and FireWire 800. Thunderbolt is presently found on a handful of drives and their usefulness is still being debated, considering the drive within external storage devices are typically mechanical hard drives that are not fast enough to take advantage of Thunderbolt’s tremendous bandwidth.
Personal Cloud Storage: Increasingly, we are seeing external drives that provide cloud storage services. With this, users can access files on their external hard drive from anywhere in the world so long as they have a working Internet connection. This differs from cloud storage solutions such as Google Drive and Dropbox in that there’s no need for subscription fees and the data is stored in your own external hard drive as opposed to some server in some unknown location on Earth.
Ease of use: This is more applicable to NAS drives which can be difficult or tedious to setup. Look for one that is user-friendly or offers some kind of a quick-installation feature.
Check out the latest PRODUCTS at our HardwareZone External Storage Product Guide.
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