Buying The Right USB Portable Drive For Your Needs

Okay...You have decided that you need a USB portable drive to add to your storage capacity. The looming question is "How do you make sure you are buying the USB portable drive that will satisfy your needs?"

The answer to that question will depend on just what your goal is in using your new drive. If you are looking for a drive for backup purposes, then a general rule of thumb is that you select a drive with 4 to 5 times the size of the data you are will backup. In my case, for backup purposes, I would want a drive of at least 1 terabyte.
If you are looking for a drive to store video, then again, you will want a large USB hard drive. With video from a camcorder, 10 minutes of video equates to about 2gb hard drive space so plan accordingly. Compressed video obviously will take less space, but you must keep in mind that you will need space to store the video data as it comes off the camera.
If you are looking to store photos, then you must consider the resolution of the camera most of your photos will be coming from. I would use 5mb as a size for a normal family point-and-shoot digital camera.
For storage of the routine files such as spreadsheets, word processing documents, email archives, etc I would suggest a 250mb or larger drive. You will never fill it but you won't have to worry about running out of space either.

Via usage of USB hubs, you can string up to a maximum of 127 USB devices to your system (A caveat is the hubs must supply their own power, the computer can't power that many devices. Besides, a self powered hub is more reliable.) Of course, 127 devices is more than any of us will ever need.