4 Great External Hard Drives

Buying a good external hard drive can be one of the most important decisions that you can make for your computer.  An external hard drive can help you to keep your computer well maintained and uncluttered, and they can be extremely useful for anyone who has more than one computer.  Some people even buy multiple external hard drives, and I'm proud to say that I'm in this group of hard drive advocates.

You can back up your data and greatly expand your storage capacity by choosing one of these excellent external hard drives. 

Western Digital 1TB My Book - This external hard drive is a great example of how far data storage has come.  Even a few years ago, it would be difficult to find a 1TB hard drive for under $250, but the Western Digital 1TB MyBook goes for under $100 on Shopping.com, and it's a fantastic entry in Western Digital's well-received series.  These are perfect hard drives for home and business computer users who need a lot of storage for videos, photos, music, and more.

Most Western Digital MyBook hard drives come with data backup software, which is another reason for their popularity.  The software is easy to use and functions very well.  With the incredible data storage of the WD MyBook, it’s possible to fully backup every file on your computer on a daily basis (provided that your computer has less than 1TB of data, of course).

Seagate FreeAgent Go 250GB – While this Seagate drive doesn’t have the storage capacity of some of the other hard drives on this list, it’s incredibly portable.  This makes it a better choice for anyone looking to use an external hard drive to move data between two separate computers.  It’s also very inconspicuous and unassuming while laying on a desk, and I prefer FreeAgent drives due to my limited desk space. 

They’re easy to travel with, and as Seagate is one of the largest and most well-respected hard drive companies in the world, the FreeAgent is a great buy for anyone looking to expand their computer’s capabilities or people looking for a quick, moveable data backup solution.  This particular hard drive is also quite inexpensive, so there’s really no reason not to grab one or two.

Maxtor OneTouch 4 USB - The Maxtor OneTouch series has been around since before Maxtor and Seagate merged.  The drives look very cool, they're extremely dependable, and they have a button that can be pressed to easily launch a program or back up all of the files on your hard drive.  This gives them that cool factor that's missing from a lot of external hard drives.  I like the new series of OneTouch drives, because they maintain the sleek look of older models while updating the features and storage capacity.

LaCie d2 Quadra - LaCie isn't the best known hard drive company out there, but they make some serious powerhouses.  The d2 Quadra is both fast and capable, and a great choice for anyone who likes to tinker with their external hard drives.  LaCie's offerings are great for anyone looking to keep price down by skipping the extras.  Their hard drives are some of the best on the market, and the d2 Quadra is no exception.