hard drive types

Your laptop computer’s hard drive is where it stores all of your data. Everything from your pictures from last year’s vacation and favorite MP3s to last year’s tax returns are all stored on some sort of hard drive. If you have a laptop computer, there are a few different hard drive options for you to choose from, each offering its own unique benefits.

1.8″ Hard Drives

The 1.8″ hard drives are designed much like 2.5″ drives, only smaller. The compact drives are typically used in smaller notebook computers or netbooks. Some companies also use the drives for storage in MP3 players and PDAs. Due to their small size, 1.8″ drives are typically not found with storage capacities over 80GB.

2.5″ Hard Drives

The 2.5″ hard drives are the type of hard drives typically used in most laptop computers. The hard drives come in varying storage capacity sizes and come built into most computers, including popular companies such as Apple, Dell, HP and Toshiba. The 2.5″ hard drives have a motor, which determines how fast you are able to read and write data to them. The fastest 2.5″ drives available run 7200 RPM (revolutions per minute). Other options include 5400 RPM and 4200 RPM drives.

Firewire Hard Drive

A firewire hard drive is an external hard drive that connects to your computer through its firewire port. External firewire drives can be purchased in sizes ranging from just a few GB to several TB and can be used to transfer data from your laptop computer to any other computers you may have in your home or office.

USB Hard Drive

USB hard drives are external hard drives created much like firewire drives that are designed to give you portable storage for your laptop as well as any other computers that you may have. USB hard drives connect to your computer through its USB port and can be used to save data much like you would save data to your traditional hard drive.

Soild-State Hard Drives (SSD)

Solid state drives are one of the newest types of drives used in laptop computers. Unlike other hard drives that have moving parts, solid state drives don’t have any parts that move. Since they have no moving parts, SSD laptops typically run much cooler than laptops using traditional drives. SSD drives are also better able to handle wear and tear (and dropping) than their traditional counterparts. SSD drives are typically used in netbooks and other smaller laptops. Laptops using SSD drives are typically much more expensive than traditional laptops due to the high cost of creating a drive. A 16GB SSD drive on the market is roughly the same cost as a 160GB traditional drive.