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Cost Of An External Solid State Drive
An external SSD offers a reduced footprint over magnetic disks, bringing greater portability, along with an elevated efficiency and resistance to shock that are combined with fast speeds inherent to the solid state types of drives. Typically, the smaller capacity external disks are currently found mostly in USB connectivity due to it being self-powered whereas larger capacity solid state drives are endowed with speedier options.
Following among tradition, external SSD prices tends to fall above that of internals.
Speed & Pricing Characteristics
For whatever reason, the SSD's in external form (offered in many detachable, lightweight and portable varieties) are not so dominated by the big name brands - perhaps with the possible exception of Toshiba, Seagate and Verbatim along with a generous note for Buffalo. While prices mainly seem to rely on storage capacity and brand-interface dependencies.The wireless Toshiba 128 G with USB and WiFi runs about $145. Moving up the stairs of storage capacities, a Seagate 256 GB in USB 3.0 is $250. While a LaCie 256 GB Thunderbolt goes for around $300.
PC Considerations for Enabling
For the PC limited to USB 2.0, in order to fully utilize the solid state option, might call for a PCI card ($20 to $35) along with a USB front panel ($12 on up, depending on any other connectors chosen).For the PC going Thunderbolt, hardware upgrades may be necessary as well, like for a PCI Express adapter card with a possible front panel.
Cables, like USB ($3 to $5), eSATA ($8) and Thunderbolt (notably; $35 to $60) may also be needed if not provided.
If placing an SSD from a raw drive into an external, expect amounts of at least $18 to $25 for an enclosure case.