MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
My elderly laptop is running out of memory. The easy answer seems to be a portable HD, given that I really am a very average home computer user what sort of size and features should I be looking at?
Cheers,
Nick
My elderly laptop is running out of [s]memory[/s] storage
1. A USB 3 interface ( even though your laptop will be USB2 ( I assume )). A USB 2 interface won't be much cheaper and if you replace the laptop at some time then you will have a USB 3 interface on the new one.
2. Enough space for [s]your dwarf pron collection[/s] whatever it is you want to store.
3. A 2.5" enclosure is generally easier to live with as a 3.5" will require a power supply. Note if your lappy is really old a 2.5" enclosure might need to be connected to 2 ports at the same time or have an external power adapter.
Firstly the STW response of answering the question you haven't asked... if everything you own is on the laptop and not backed up then it's time for a major re-think. What if it got stolen or the drive packed in one day? A portable drive is a good start but not enough on it's own.
For a portable drive firstly make sure you get a proper portable one than runs from usb power and doesn't need it's own supply, secondly get a reasonable brand (WD, hitachi, toshiba, etc) finally get one big enough to copy everything twice and have room for expansion so probably 3 or 4 times the size of your laptop drive
Why's it running out of storage? What's on it?
It doesn't have to be complicated.
Some smaller drives use the USB power instead of needing an extra plug socket and transformer. That's a feature worth having.
Otherwise just buy on size:
500GB £3x
1TB £5x
For example:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/sony-1tb-usb3-0-portable-external-hard-drive-59-99-pc-world-1486599
or