Portable vs external hard drive?

Rather than buying mutlitple "thumb drives" or Flash drives or whatever you choose to call them, to store photos and other large files, I am thinking about a much larger larger capacity portable or external hard drive. A flyer from a national office supply store is showing both Portable and External drives from same company - Seagate. A 500GB Portable is about $70 versus a 1 TB external for $90. There are other sizes of both avertised as well, but my questions is: Do they both connect via USB port and what is the difference overall between the Portable and External hard drives?

I'd have to "look at" the actual devices. But in general, the "portable" will be smaller/slimmer for ease of portability, for instance, to accompany a laptop when you are mobile. Hard Drives develop HEAT just like any electronic/mechanical device. Therefore, I prefer a larger and possibly ventilated enclosure. That said, I still use the Maxtor One-Step externals that I purchased a few years ago. _________________ All Externals and Portables should have USB connection. Some may also offer e-SATA It may be to your advantage (read/write speed) to select a brand and model that supports the newer USB 3.0 It's the same size/shape of plug and socket, and is therefore compatible with USB 2.0 and even USB 1.1. If your current machine has USB 3.0 capability, you will realize the benefit immediately. If not, go ahead and select USB 3.0 for your external, since your future machine(s) will likely have that capability. Best Regards

Both are portable but those that state portable would be easier to move or carry with you to different locations and are smaller and more compact in size. My other external hard drive is much larger in size and not as easy to carry around with you. Especially if you want to take it from say your home to another home ~ it is larger and bulkier in size than the portable hard drive. But both are portable.

1 One futher difference that may be worth noting is that some external drives will need their own power supply in the form of a voltage reducer (often referred to as a brick or AC adapter typically 5v (based usually on 3.5inch desktop hard drive.) These are not really terribly good for carrying around with you, being a bit bulky. 2 Others will be smaller, lighter and some would say neater and need no external power supply…the inbuilt power supply within a standard USB port being sufficient for its needs. ( they are often based on notebook type hard drives (9.5mm) in thickness and are very light. I always have a 350GB version in my repair bag as its takes up next to no room and is highly portable. Regards paws