Ordinary USB or External Hard Drive?

Obviously, a USB drive that only holds 8GB is useful for carrying around smaller files on the go. An external hard drive is still quite portable, but it will hold 100 GB to 1 TB or more of data. It's as simple as that. If you need a lot of space, then a USB thumb drive is nothing compared to an external hard drive. Then you have to consider hard drives versus solid-state drives, which feature their own differences and advantages.

 

Hard drives are usually for back up and USB sticks are for transferring files from one device to another. Most people store in the cloud like dropbox which can be quicker. I use USB sticks a lot in conferences when speakers have a presentation or someone has a file to give someone but don't know their email address. The thing with a hard drive it saves most things automatically, so maybe things you don't want saved. You could switch to manual saving if you know how, but most people opt for automatic. the problem is you may use up space for things you don't need, so on a stick you can easily delete as you choose what to store.

 

First of all, Congratulations on winning your 8GB Iron Man USB!! Second of all, your statement is absolutely correct, that external hard drive are Expensive. But put in mind that every thing has a price, specially when it comes to technologies, I say, Every Quality Has a Price, and also put in mind that purchasing an external hard drive is an essential thing to do especially in this time of speed and internet and technologies. Don't think about the price, but think of it's Necessity Of Usage, you can buy an ordinary usb flash with 36GB at anytime and anywhere, but I advice you NOT to save any important files within it, for usb flash memories have many problems. and if you are a Computer user in a regular basis, then you would diffidently know what I'm talking about. If you want to be clarified more about external hard drivers, here i posted three links that will give you better answers to help you decide whether to use one or not!!

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An external HDD should only cost you maybe $100 on eBay for a good one, and considering you have an internet connection I think you should look there first. Since my computer has a 1TB HDD, I don't have to buy an external one but I do keep a 16GB USB 3.0 Kingston lying around whenever I need to move data around without having to rely on "cloud storage" (it's called the internet guys) or whatever.

 

I agree with what has been said, basically, an external hard drive is used to store or back up large files, and flash drives are only used to store small files or documents or used to transfer files. I just use a flash drive or memory card to store my files, since I don't feel the need to buy an external hard drive yet. All my movies and games are just stored in the pc.

 

The good thing bat USB thumb drives is that they don't break as easily. I've found that some external hard drives wear out or break sometimes, but the new ones might not be this weak anymore. That said, I've also broken some thumb drives myself and for some reason some of them required me to reformat and therefore lose my data, but they always got back to working condition afterwards. If you are to choose one or the other, I think it will just have to do with your preferred capacity as external hard drives generally carry a lot more than a thumb drive will.

 

I have both. I think a USB flash drive is something like a 16gb that I can bring around on my lanyard if I need to print certain documents out for school or work. I use a 1TB external HD to save memories such as important documents or pictures and videos.

 

I would agree with much of what has been said before. 8 Gb is enough if you are not saving large files etc and doing everyday backing up or saving but if you do a lot of storing when you are on your computer then an external harddrive is for you. The size depends largely on what it is you are or will be doing.

 

I think you need to have both. USB is good for mobility and efficiency. If you are doing a presentation, safe your file in your USB, which you can carry with you as you move around in your activity. A small USB flash drive can handle up to 128GB+. Still, a USB flash drive is most often used to store word documents, music files, videos, photos, and not software or complicated applications. Meanwhile, you can store software and applications on your hard drive, backup the files and folders in your laptop, but... based on my personal experience, you need a backup of the files that you have in your hard drive. They are prone to viruses.

So, what does this mean? Both are useful, but they are usually used for different types of data storage. For document files and mobile files you need to access regularly, perhaps daily to modify, you can use the USB. File transfers between computers is usually done with a USB flash drive, rather than a hard drive, which is more for storing software and large application files.

 

Advantages of using an external hard drive, well first of all they're a hundred times bigger in capacity and in physicality that's for sure. If you're planning on carrying around huge files on the go then hard drives are your best options however you have to deal with it's bulk.

Although their not that hard to carry around, they're still heavier and quite bigger than your phone so you can't just put it in your pocket like that. Other than that there's no other advantages to that I guess.

 

To be honest, these two devices really can't be compared to each other. It's imperative to have an external hard drive for backups, especially if you have a lot of important documents. However, if you travel a lot, it's also essential to have a USB drive because of the portability factor. Also, they can be used to share important data fast instead of having to look through all of the files that would be on an external HDD.

 

I find a USB to be increasingly irrevelant given the advent of Google Docs and Dropbox, I can store small files easily on the cloud. I would get a external HDD instead for all my videos/photos which I can't store online, but most documents I use for work should fit on Dropbox just fine.

 

It depends on your needs. If you just have to gather/share different office documents, then a flash drive is the way to go. But if you aim to store a lot of music, installers, movies, etc... then the external hard drive it is. I personally have both. I first had a USB. But as my needs started to grow, I saved up some money to purchase an external hard drive. I currently have a ton of movies, a treasure trove of music files, picture files, video files, etc. But of course, I still carry my handy USB around just in case.

 

8GB's isn't that much so unless you're planning on bringing along more than 8GB's worth of files and storage then you would need a hard drive that has 10 x more capacity than that. Of course these hard drives cost more and weigh more, you can't really fit one in your pocket, I mean you can but it's a bit too bulky to fit in nicely.

 

USB memory sticks were once used as large storage devices, but since external hard-drives became more consumer friendly in price and quality, USBs have shifted to temporary storages units. I myself used to have a lot of USB sticks back 7 years ago, but ever since 2009, I bought my first external hard-drive and I haven't looked back. I do occasionally use USB for small and quick storage I can easily bring along outside of my house, but I do it less and less, because cloud-storage has also brought a new dynamic to it all.

If you can't afford a external-hard drive yet, depending on what you're storing, maybe cloud-storages could be a temporary solution.

 

USB sticks for more portable and smaller files and HDD's for bigger files. That's basically the gist of it. Also, you can swap in your HDD inside your laptop if you want more space there but other than that it's just a matter of size.

 

I don't mind having both. For bigger files, you can save them to your external hard drive. You can even back up your entire system. The problem with the external drive is that it's heavy. The external drive consumes a lot of space, so if you're a female who carries around a shoulder or hand bag instead of a backpack, this device wouldn't be as convenient or expedient to you as a USB. Unless you really need to use an external drive, you can just opt for an ordinary USB 3.0 Flash with a storage capacity of 512GB up to 1TB.

 

Well, if I can state the obvious, the external hard drive has more storage than the USB flash drive. I think USBs can cover up until 32 or 64gb on some brands, but that's the maximum. External hard drives can cater up until 1 TB. Which is a lot of data. If you've got a lot of files to save, might as well go with the external hard drive.

 

Obviously, a regular USB has nothing on external drives, storage wise. USBs are good for small sized files and i like it because it's really small so it's really handy. External drives however are obviously the best place to put your movies and movies and other large files.