PORTABLE HARD DRIVES

Most of us can't live on just the hard drive of our laptops and desktops.

Sure we can always burn large files to free up space on our hard drives, but we all know that can be such a pain.

Since I have the Asus Eee Pc, which only has 4GB of storage, that clearly wasn't enough. So I thought I needed to get an external HD too, which had to be as portable as the Asus. But I ended up getting a portable HD even before I wanted to get the Asus.

It all started when my home desktop was acting up. So I started freaking out, and realized that I had to back up my files ASAP, and have my PC reformatted.

So I went to the mall and looked for the best deal. My friends Dex and Bugsy recently also purchased a portable hard drive. It's not really a portable hard drive, it's actually a desktop hard drive inside a casing called an "enclosure", add a USB and voila! It becomes a portable hard drive.

This is a cheaper alternative, but available enclosures aren't guaranteed to give your hard drive a snug fit, so it might shake a little bit, and it might even damage the hard drive eventually, hence losing all your data.

I saw a lot of different brands of portable hard drives, but I ended up with a 160GB Western Digital Passport (pic shown above).

Its design is very modern, it's so compact that it can fit in your pocket, and it's even lighter than my mobile phone! And quite affordable too, at P4,500, it's so much cheaper than buying flash drives. They also have a 320GB HD which retails for about P9,500. And you know what else is amazing about the WD HDs? All their passports, from 60GB to 320GB are the same size! You would expect that the 320GB would be a little thicker, but it isn't. The 160GB iPod is even thicker than WD's 320GB HD.

It comes with a 3 year warranty too. I always say, the longer the warranty, the more durable the product is. And they have it in funky colors too.

So, happy with my purchase, I went home and started to work on backing up my files. And guess what happened? My PC just miraculously stopped acting up. I wasn't disappointed on buying the HD though. I knew I'd have some use for it soon. Now that I bought the Asus, the WD is perfect for it.

Lacie is also a famous brand of funky portable HDs. Ever see the ones that look like lego bricks? That's Lacie. And they only come with 2 years warranty. So WD is in the lead.
I am so fond of WD, that I had to research on what else they had.

They also have desktop external hard drives. It's not that portable, being a lot thicker and a little heavier than the passports, but if you don't mind the extra weight, then sure, it's still considered a portable HD.

These things were obviously built for graphic studios, musicians, sound engineers and photographers because of the capacity. I didn't even know this kind of capacity even existed. They call it "My Book".

Are you ready for this? Their hard drives have a whopping 2TB of space! A TB (terabyte) is equivalent to 1,000GB. You do the math. That's 600,000 photos, 500,000 songs, and 880 hours of DVD quality vids!

They also have a desktop hard drive, still with 2TB of space, and with remote access, called "My Book World Edition".

Meaning, while the HD is at home or in the office, you can access the files in this thing anywhere in the world using any computer or laptop! All you gotta do is pair it with your DSL, Broadband or WiFi connection, browse with Windows Explorer, and you can instantly access all your files wherever you are! Even when your computer at home is turned off. Say it with me...WOW!

WD Passports are available in most SM Cyberzones, Greenhills V-Mall and Gilmore Computer shops.

For WD HD capacities of more than 320GB to 2TB, order from their site at http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=324&language=en