Network External Hard Drive

One of the great new things that you can do is network external hard drive with the USB slots that many wireless routers now come with. By attaching your external hard drive to your network, you achieve several things.

First, you will be able to access that external hard drive from any computer or device on the network. Before, you would have had to hook the external hard drive up to a computer, and then transfer files to the computer, where they could then be accessed by other computers and devices on the network.

As you can tell, hooking your external hard drive up directly to the router cuts out a step in the process, and will save you a lot of time.

Network External Hard Drive

Here are a few external hard drives that would network well.

• Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk v 2.0 – The FreeAgent GoFlex from Seagate makes an ideal network external hard drive for a couple of reasons. First, it goes all the way up to 4 TB, so even with a few different people using it, you wont ever have to worry about filling it up. It also has the new and improved USB 3.0, so that the USB cord wont be the weak link in the chain when transferring files between computer and external hard drive.
• Western Digital My Book Essential – This would make anothe great network external hard drive. It comes with USB 3.0, just like the Seagate above, so you don’t have to worry about slow transfer speeds between router and external hard drive. It goes up to 3 TB, so you will have plenty of storage room for anything and everything. The big difference between this model and the Seagate above is a whole lot more reviews for this Western Digital external hard drive.
• LaCie Minimus – This product from LaCie makes an ideal network external hard drive for someone looking for an external hard drive that can be hooked up to a router as easily as it can be thrown in a bag and taken on the road. It tops out at 2 TB, but it also fits in the palm of your hand, so it doubles as a very portable external hard drive. The other two above are the kind of external hard drive that sit on your desk and don’t move.

Those external hard drives should give you an idea of what might be suitable for hooking up to a wireless router. The important thing you want to remember with a networked external hard drive is that with multiple people using it, it will fill up quickly. Multiple people using it at the same time will also mean reduced transfer rates, so USB 3.0 is something else you want to make sure to get.

And if none of these external hard drives seems like the right fit for your router, you can find a whole lot more to browse through over at the compare external hard drives list.