External Hard Drives and USB ports

[mongo2]

Today I discovered that my current external hard drive has filled to capacity. 

I need a new one but don't know what kind I should buy.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My PC is a DELL Optiplex 3020 mini-tower.  It has 8 external USB 2.0 ports.

The PC is currently running Win 10 Pro.

The current full HDD is a Western Digital My Passport with a capacity of 485 GB.

Looking at new external drives I see that there are HDDs and SSDs.  I believe ll of them use USB connections.

However, every one I have seen has USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 interfaces.

Will those work with my USB 2.0 ports?  Any other info needed?

 

 

 

 

[kansuwan]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/consumer-reviews/sns-bestreviews-electronics-the-best-toshiba-external-hard-drive-20200204-7io7enqfkff6tblh2uqxkpxc2a-story.html

 

https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/toshiba-portable-hard-drives-canvio-advance/

[CyberPro]

Western Digital are the only HDDs I'll buy but the WD passport drive has a shorter warranty than a WD black label, blue label or enterprise drive last time I looked, ie a lower quality drive IMO.

I'd buy the drive separately, an external enclosure and make your own setup to get a higher quality WD drive. I'd use HHD for the external drive for longevity, have had good results both with new drives from Amazon and used from Ebay as long as you don't buy one that's really old. 

USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with 2.0 but the performance will be 2.0.  If you have a minitower you should have room for an expansion card with a USB 3.0 port. I use Inateck brand from Amazon with no problems. 

Edited February 28, 2021 by CyberPro

[mongo2]

Thanks fellows, very helpful.

 

[bungee]

I would also choose a WD solution.

Hard drives use SATA not USB. For USB there will be an adapter between the drive and computer to convert SATA to USB.

What CyberPro was saying above was instead of buying a solution of the hard drive and USB adapter combined it's often cheaper and more flexible to buy them separately -  just make sure you match sizes either 2.5” or 3.5” drives.

eg – picked at random https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-5-inch-USB-3-0-2-0-External-Hard-Drive-HD-Enclosure-HDD-SSD-SATA-Housing-Case/143706575695

is the empty enclosure.

I would avoid SSD drives for external usage. You won’t see any speed advantage over USB and they are more expensive. If you are going for a really large drive I would avoid one that use shingles (placing the tracks close together) as this will impact write speed when the drive fills up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_magnetic_recording.

[Soi7]

I have a Desktop external WD 1TB HD that i have had for 13 years still working fine. I have had 2 Seagate HDs that went bad within 18 months. 

Also had a 500 GB WD that was purchased from Hardware house it Tukcom 3 years later went bad they replaced it No Charge had to wait 2 weeks to get from WD the Ok but they ereplaced with a smile.