Data storage buyer's guide
With so much of our lives now in digital form - from music and films to photos and files - it’s vital that you can quickly and easily move these around, share them with friends and safely back them up.
All of these require data storage in one form or another. But what sort should you choose and how much do you need?
DVD and CD
One of the cheapest storage options is to use the built-in CD or DVD writer that many laptops and desktop PCs come with. Blank CDs can store 640MB, suitable for over a hundred MP3 or Jpeg files, and can cost as little as 10p. A blank single-sided DVD stores 4.7GB of data and a blank double-sided DVD 8.5GB, which is suitable for around 1,000 or 2,000 MP3 files respectively. If your PC doesn’t have a drive it’s possible to buy external USB DVD drives.
Blank media is cheap, but writing to the media takes time and, compared to hard drives, offers a relatively low capacity.
USB flash drive
Small and fast, these tiny devices plug into a free USB port and work like hard drives. Available in a range of capacities from 2GB up to 32GB, they’re perfect for transporting files.
External hard drive
These devices offer vast amounts of high-speed storage in either a convenient 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch based package, depending on the technology used inside. Connecting via USB they enable you to back up a huge amount of your data. Many will offer back-up software to make this process easier.
In general 3.5-inch drives provide faster and larger capacities but require an external power supply. The smaller 2.5-inch drives tend to be a little slower and have smaller capacities but are more portable as they don’t require any additional power supply. Currently 3.5-inch drives can offer up to 2,000GB of storage while 2.5-inch drives up to 500GB.
Network storage
This is the same basic device as an external 3.5-inch hard drive, but these offer the additional advantage that they can be accessed over your home network through a standard wired network port. This enables more than one computer to access them at the same time, and means they can be installed anywhere and don’t need to be plugged into your PC - although this will reduce the effective access speed.
Data storage features & videos
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