Last modified: Thursday, May 03, 2007
A hard drive that is outside of the computer case in its own enclosure. Most support the IDE interface and are slightly bigger than a hard drive itself. When purchasing an external hard drive you can buy a full external hard drive system that consists of both the hard drive and the enclosure, or you can purchase just the enclosure to hold your own hard drive. External hard drives may contain a fan for cooling and are popular because they are portable devices and can be stored securely under lock and key since they are not inside the computer case. An external hard drive is connected to the computer system with a single high-speed interface cable, usually with plug-and-play interfaces such as USB or FireWire. Hard drive enclosures, also called hard drive cages are made to support up to a certain physical size of hard disk, so you need to check the manufacturer's specification when buying just the enclosure. See hard disk drive. Also see What's Inside a Hard Drive? in the Did You Know . . . ? section of Webopedia.
HardwareCentral Resource site offering news and information about PC hardware elements. Includes timely feature articles and sections on optimization and troubleshooting. Sharky Extreme Reporting on the latest hardware and software technology for the PC enthusiast.	Related Categories Hard Disk Drives Mobile Computing Related Terms ATA FireWire hard drive enclosure harddrive hardware IDE optical disk platter tower model USB external hard drive Products : Top Store Offers: Apple Store  119.95With USB 2.0, eSATA and FireWire 400, the LaCie Hard Disk, Design by Neil Poulton, offers universal connectivity with your Mac, PC, or Linux-based com... Dell SMB  2062.00Dell PowerVault 110T LTO3 Hard Drive PowerVault 110T, LTO-3, 400/800GB, External Drive Dell SMB  115.99Designed for use with the Odyssey docking station, these cartridges can quickly and securely store data at conventional hard drive capacities. Utilizi... Apple Store  119.95G-DRIVE mini's rugged all aluminium enclosure and advanced industrial design complement the sophisticated styling of your MacBook or MacBook Pro. It f... Dell SMB  175.00The USB 500 GB Hard Drive from Dell™ boasts a high storage capacity of 500 GB, enabling users to store large amounts of data. It features a rotation... Compare all matches: 1381 Store Offers