Archives for January 2019

5 Top Rated External Hard Drives for 2019

January 26, 2019 By Dan Leave a Comment

External HDDs have enough storage for you to easily back up your data, rather than keeping it on USB sticks like in the “old days”.

Characteristics of External HDDs

Capacity

If you need to back up some documents and your smartphone photos, 1TB should be plenty. If you want to store your music collection, video files or keep a clone of your internal storage go for 2TB, 4TB and above.

Transfer speed

Backing up your files can take a lot of time, depending on the size of your data. If speed is important to you, look for an external HDD with a transfer speed of at least 120MB/s for writing and 130MB/s for reading (USB 3.0 connection). The older drives using USB 2.0 would limit speeds to around 35MB/s, approx. 4 times slower.

Portability

If you’re often on the go, portability is key. The most frequent size is 2.5″ inch for portable HDD. They do not weigh much, they can help you easily move data from one device to another. The 3.5″ inch HDDs are larger and heavier.

Physical protection

A rugged exterior can be handy if you want your external HDD to withstand shock, or even fire or water. External SSDs can survive more brutal treatment. The more money you spend, the better the protection will be.

Connectivity

Nowadays, all external HDDs have USB 3.0 connections, or even USB 3.1. Some older models have a USB 2.0 connection. There are also some models with Ethernet or Wi-Fi connections, to share data using the network. For 2.5″ inch HDDs, the USB cable, in addition to transmitting the data, also serves to power the device. Larger 3.5″ inch HDDs that consume more power need a separate cable.

Reliability

It’s difficult to choose the most reliable external HDD. The technologies used in traditional HDDs or SSDs imply a limited lifespan, which is why warranties are relatively short – one to three years. What’s important, is not to rely on any single drive for storing your backups. Ideally, you should have three copies: one on a PC, one on a backup drive, and one in the cloud.

Security

To protect your data in the event of losing the drive or having it stolen, you can encrypt it. You can either use hardware encryption on the whole drive if supported, or you can use software to encrypt parts or all the drive otherwise.

There’s a huge range of external HDDs for sale, so I’ve picked some great external HDDs to help you find the perfect one for your needs.

Best reliability – recommended for backup and storage at home

WD 4 TB My Book Desktop Hard Drive – Black

Hard Disk Size:4.0 TB
Hardware Interface: USB 3.00
Hard Disk Description: Desktop
Hardware Platform: PC, Mac

Best speed and capacity – recommended for price/performance

Seagate Expansion 8TB Desktop External Hard Drive

Hard Disk Size:8.0 TB
Hardware Interface: USB 3.00
Hard Disk Description: Desktop
Hardware Platform: PC, Mac, Android OS

Best portability – recommended for travel

WD 500GB My Passport Go Cobalt SSD Portable

Hard Disk Size:500 GB
Hardware Interface: USB 3.0/2.0
Hard Disk Description: Portable
Hardware Platform: PC, Mac, Android OS

Best external SSD – recommended for speedy transfers

Samsung Portable SSD T5 500GB

Hard Disk Size:1.0 TB
Hardware Interface: USB-C 3.1/3.0/2.0
Hard Disk Description: Portable
Hardware Platform: PC, Mac, Android OS

Best rugged – recommended for extreme conditions of use

ADATA HD710 Waterproof/Dustproof/Shock-Resistant External Hard Drive, Yellow

Hard Disk Size:1.0 TB
Hardware Interface: USB 3.00
Military-Grade Waterproof and Shockproof Construction
Passed the stringent IEC 529 IPX7 test – Passed the stringent Military MIL-STD-810G 516.5 drop test.
Blue LED Indicator Light
Wrap-around USB Cable

The Importance of Backing Up Your Data

January 24, 2019 By Dan Leave a Comment

Backup, Probably The Most Important IT Operation

While the internet is full of possibilities, it also brings various challenges that you may want to overcome. One of the things you need to keep in mind is the fact that malware attacks (in particular, ransomware attacks) are increasingly common nowadays. Ransomware encrypts files on the infected computers making them inaccessible. In the last two years, the WannaCry, Petya and Bad Rabbit ransomware attacks spread across the world and generated millions of dollars in losses. They even put human lives at risk by making hospital computer systems nonfunctional and unable to help patients – see all the details here. If you want to stay safe online and keep yourself away from this type of attack, you should consider taking some precautions:

Keep your operating system and installed software up to date

You always want to update all your software if you want to stay away from malware attacks. Every time a vulnerability is discovered and reported, software developers update their programs to fix it. So, try to update every piece of software you use as often as you can. This will help keep you away from potential issues.

Use licensed software

Whenever you deal with cracked software, you might be putting your computer at risk. Many malware infections come from unwanted software, installed from disreputable sources. That’s why you should consider using only licensed software.

Install security software

Installing security software helps you avoid malware infections or attacks. There are multiple antivirus solutions on the market you can rely on. Plus, you can choose to install an internet security software that includes additional features, depending on your needs.

Create a backup of your data

While the options listed above create additional layers of security, having a backup for your data is the only guaranteed way to ensure your data’s safety. You can opt for either a local or a cloud backup, ideally both.

Local backups mean that you’ll be keeping the data on a computer or external storage that’s not connected to the internet.

Cloud backups mean storing data on secure servers from companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dropbox or other cloud storage providers.
Either way, creating a backup of your data is crucial for recovering from any malware attack or hardware failure. Investing in a proper backup solution is a must.

If you are a Windows user and you want to learn how to protect your files, I recommend this book: How To Backup & Recover Your Windows 10 or Windows 7 64 Bit Computer In One Hour

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD – Review

January 23, 2019 By Dan Leave a Comment

Samsung 860 EVO Overview

Product: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM)
Price: $84.99
Cheapest Place to Buy: Amazon (Current Amazon Top Seller)
Drive Capacity: 500GB
Warranty: 5 years
My Rating: 9.7/10

Part of Samsung’s budget SSD line, the Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal
SSD uses V-NAND technology. V-NAND stands for vertical NAND, which contains flash cells stacked vertically and 3 dimensionally for greater density and speed. NAND chips have more memory than their stated capacity, about 4 percent. This is used by the controller for operations, and to replace defective cells. This spare capacity (over-provisioning) increases an SSD’s lifespan.

The best feature of Samsung 860 EVO

In my opinion, endurance is the best feature. Endurance can be measured through a unit known as Total Bytes Written, which is meant to help users understand how long their drive should last.
For the 860 Evo, TBW=1200TB compared to 300TB for the last generation, 850 Evo.
That’s four times better.

Other specifications

Speed

It is not the fastest SATA SSD (up to 550 Mb/s max. sequential read and up to 520 Mb/s max. sequential write), but it comes close to the highest specifications of the SATA III standard (600 Mb/s).

Price and Capacity

This SSD has an affordable price for a huge amount of solid state storage.

Why use an SSD over an HDD

Speed is the main advantage of an SSD over an HDD. To understand why you need to
understand how data is written to SSDs. With a hard drive, data is basically written serially, down a single channel. Inside an SSD, data is written in a parallel mode, down multiple channels to the multiple NAND chips at once. The more NAND chips an SSD has, the more channels it has to write/read across, and the faster the drive will be. So, for an SSD, a higher capacity means better performance.
You can read more about choosing between HDDs and SSDs in this post.

Other things to consider before buying

Before buying, you should ensure the compatibility of your motherboard with the SATA III feature of this SSD. The difference between SATA II and SATA III is the data transfer speed (SATA II – 300 Mbps – SATA III – 6Gbps). If you are not sure if you have SATA III, you can use this free program: HWiNFO.
With cloud storage getting cheaper, you can keep more data in the cloud and less on your computer so you may not need as much storage space as you did a few years ago. In order to install it in your PC, you need to buy a SATA III 6 Gbps cable and a mounting bracket. It’s cheaper if you buy the bundle, not separately.

Conclusion

If you need to buy a SATA SSD right now, Samsung 860 EVO is the best option.
An SSD is one of the best, if not the best way to upgrade any old computer that has a traditional hard drive. Even if your computer already has an SSD you can buy a bigger one if you ran out of space.

Check out the Best Sellers in Internal Solid State Drives here.