External Hard Drive Questions

[starvista9]

Do external hard drives require its own operating system ? I need alot of storage. Are External hard drives difficult to hook up ? Can I take it out of the box and just plug it into the USB port, and start storing data ?

 

[Nodsu]

You do not have to put an operating system on it. You may have to partition and format an external drive. If you have Windows 2000 or XP then it should run out of the box.

External hard drives are not any bigger than internal ones. Their usefulness depends on the kind of storage you really need.

 

[starvista9]

I have alot of Video Files and MP3 files. Burning all of them to DVD's and CD's will be too time consuming. I have Windows XP home edtion. I have close to 200 gigs of stuff between 2 PC's. Both PC's are starting to get slugish. I want to combine everything on an Extrnal HD and let both PC's share that External HD, if that is possiable.

So is a Extrnal HD a right choice for my storage needs ?

 

[Nodsu]

Well, both of your PCs will not be able to use the external HD at once. Unless you want to buy one of these: http://www.linksys.com/HDD/

Otherwise a big external HD would suit you well. Esp. since you can stash it in five seconds when the FBI comes knocking