Best External Drive for your Chromebox

Chrome doesn’t only run on laptops.

Chromeboxes make great computers for plenty of people. In households where there are kids, they’re the perfect desktop computer for homework, and attached to your TV they bring the internet and everything that comes with it to your big screen. But you might need more storage to get the most from one.

Chromeboxes aren’t laptops. Chances are you’re not tossing one into a backpack and setting it up at Starbucks; instead, it sits quietly behind a screen of some sort and is always ready. That means there is no reason to try and get by with 16 or 32 GB of storage. Most models are easy to take apart and upgrade if you’re the DIY type, but adding more storage for your stuff is as easy as plugging in a cable.

While any USB powered hard drive will work, we like these options.

Western Digital My Passport

Simple and cheap is what plenty of people are looking for when it comes to file storage. I’ll add in dependable and say the WD My Passport is the best bargain external hard drive you can buy. It’s a spinning disk drive so you won’t be breaking any read speed records, but it’s perfect for storing photos or music or video. If you plan to install Plex on your Chromebox this is your cheap storage option.

It’s available in 1TB to 4TB options and starts around $60. They also come in a handful of different colors if it’s sitting somewhere it will be seen. You’ll be able to store plenty of stuff on the cheap with this one.

See at Amazon

Samsung T3

This is the other end of the spectrum. High-capacity and fast SSD drives are not cheap.

If you need a big boost in storage for your Chromebox but need to have SSD speeds, the Samsung T3 drive is one of the best ways to make it happen. They use Samsung’s own 3D V-NAND to bring read/write speeds of up to 450MB/s over a USB 3.1 connection, are future-proof with a USB-C port, and aren’t much bigger than a credit card. You can store and retrieve all of your stuff really fast if that’s what you need.

All this comes at a price. The 250GB model starts about $120, and as size climbs higher so does the price tag until you get to the $700+ 2TB option.

See at Amazon

Anker 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure

This enclosure from Anker will let you use almost any 2.5-inch drive as a USB 3.0 device that can plug right into your Chromebox.

Slide it open and drop any 7.5 or 9mm 2.5-inch drive inside, slide it shut and you’re ready to plug it in. You don’t need any tools and it only takes a few minutes — there is no need to have anxiety about building “computer stuff” because it really is this easy.

For less than $20 you can use one of your old hard drives or something like this 500GB Samsung 850 EVO to have those fast speeds without such a high price.

See at Amazon

The Public Access Weekly: Aud lang syne

Hey all — we’re doing an abbreviated Public Access Weekly today because it’s the holidays, it’s almost CES and my plane home was delayed last night. (Side note, apparently it’s possible to drop your phone into a plane’s fuselage which someone learned the hard way last night. The more you know!)

If you are a Public Access member who has submitted an article, or if you have registered to become a Public Access member, please know I will be working diligently to get you a response as soon as humanly possible. I know a lot of you have been waiting for longer than anticipated, and my sincere apologies for that — a lot of folks have been out or traveling for the holiday season and we’re a bit behind.

If you are a commenter, please know that I am aware that notifications and alerts are not taking you to the comment in question but are directing users to the overall thread. I am looking into that, but again, the one-two-punch of holidays and CES are causing that to take a bit longer than expected.

Looking for something to write about? Mull over:

The head honcho Jack Dorsey is considering the idea of adding an edit feature to Twitter and despite it being a user suggested addition, many Twitter users have misgivings about what that would mean for the social-media platform. Should Twitter add an edit feature? Why or why not? And how should that feature work?

Since CES is right around the corner, tell us what you’re most excited about, what you think will be released and announced, or what you dislike most about the year’s first technology trade show.

And here’s a quick one: What was the best tech gift that you received this holiday season and why?

Watch Korea’s mech take its first steps with a pilot on board

That real, life-sized mech Korean company Hankook Mirae debuted recently isn’t just for show. Its designer, Hollywood SFX veteran Vitaly Bulgarov, has posted a video on Facebook showing the robot taking its first steps. And, yes, it had a pilot on board. The 13-feet-tall, 1.3-ton machine was created to work in extreme conditions where humans cannot go unprotected. It won’t be able to go on rescue missions anytime soon, though — not without a power source that’s portable enough.

Bulgarov says the company’s short-term goal is to develop a tethered robotic platform with industrial applications. The company could also mount its top part on a larger wheeled base that can accommodate a chunky power source if it really needs to traverse rough terrains where there’s nowhere to plug it in.

You can watch the mech walk right here:

And here is Bulgarov controlling the robot’s 286-pound arms:

Source: Vitaly Bulgarov