Hi Margaret, Depending on the type of hard drive you get, it can range from the size of a large hard cover book, to the size of a hand held PDA.
Allow me to explain. You can purchase the already made external hard drives, which come already to use on your computer, and can plug into any USB port, and those are usually the size of a hard cover book. The alternative is to purchase an internal hard drive, and buy and external enclosure for it. Internal hard drives will range anywhere between 25 to 250 dollars cheaper than their external counterparts, and can be assembled with a minimum of work. The larger models are the size of hard cover books, not because of the hard drive itself, but the size of the enclosure, and they usually require an external power source to increase their speed. There is a smaller variety, in the form of laptop hard drives. The are usually the size of two decks of playing cards, laid side by side, and about a quarter the thickness. So you can obtain a good hard drive, internal for a laptop, for just under 150 dollars for a 300 gigabyte model, and purchase a hard drive enclosure for it, for 5 bucks, well worth the price. If you don't feel comfortable assembling it yourself, you can always get the store reps to assemble it for you for 20 bucks, and the hard drive still comes out cheaper than a regular external model, and is a great deal smaller. These laptop models also do not need an external power supply, as they get all their power from the USB port. Should the USB port not have enough power to run the hard drive, the end of the USB cord comes equipped with two USB plugs which you can plug into another USB port for extra power, but I find that having one plugged in is usually enough. In any case, this may be something you may want to look at. Victor Visit the Blind Computing List home page at: http://www.blind-computing.com Address for the list archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help from Mailman with your account Put the word help in the subject or body of a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use the following form in order to contact the management team http://www.jaws-users.com/BlindComputing.php If you wish to join the JAWS Users List send a blank email to the following address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
