In case you’re working out of cupboard space in your laptop computer, or if it’s essential again up your information and retailer that backlog of movies you are going to edit someday (I’m, I swear), an exterior exhausting drive can remedy your drawback. The difficulty is, there are lots of of drive choices starting from dust low-cost to loopy costly—which one is correct in your wants? I’ve examined dozens, throughout working techniques and with totally different use instances in thoughts, to seek out the perfect exterior exhausting drives for storage, backups, gaming, video modifying, network-attached storage (NAS) gadgets, and extra.
Try our different guides, together with Tips on how to Again Up and Transfer Your Images Between Companies, Tips on how to Again Up Your Digital Life, and Tips on how to Again Up Your iPhone.
Up to date February 2025: We have added the Western Digital My Passport Extremely, LaCie’s Rugged Pro5, and the Samsung EVO 990 naked drive. We have additionally up to date costs and hyperlinks all through.
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Desk of Contents
Choosing the right exhausting drive comes all the way down to balancing three issues: pace, dimension, and value. In case you’re making nightly backups, then pace in all probability does not matter. Go for the most cost effective drive you’ll find—up to a degree. Drives do not final perpetually, however some last more than others. I recommend sticking with recognized manufacturers with an excellent status, like Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, and the others featured right here. That is based mostly partly on expertise and partly on the drive failure information that Backblaze has been publishing for years now. Backblaze goes by way of large quantities of exhausting drives backing up prospects’ information, and its report is price studying. The takeaway is straightforward: Follow names .
Which Are the Most Dependable Manufacturers of Exterior Onerous Drives?
That is troublesome to reply, because it depends upon too many components. However in the event you go by Backblaze’s stats report for 2023, the perfect drive makes are Toshiba, Seagate, Western Digital, and Hitachi (HGST in Backblaze’s charts). The present best-performing drives seem like Seagate’s 6- and 8-TB SSDs. With that in thoughts, if I had been constructing a network-attached storage (NAS) system, the Seagate Exos 8 TB HDD is what I’d use. After that although, failures—particularly amongst SSDs—seem fairly random.
Which Is Higher, SSD or HDD?
It depends upon what you are doing. In case you want quick information switch speeds, then you definitely desire a solid-state drive (SSD). When you have large quantities of knowledge to retailer or again up, then a spinning drive (hybrid exhausting drive, or HDD) is the cheaper possibility. In case you’re a videographer, you want each—open your pockets broad. Usually, SSDs are the way in which to go when you may afford it.
If pace trumps value, then you definitely need to take a look at the solid-state drives we have listed right here. SSDs do not simply have a pace benefit. Additionally they lack shifting elements, which implies they’re going to face up to the bumps and falls of life in a bag on the highway higher than spinning drives. The drawback is that they’ll put on out sooner. Each write operation to an SSD—that’s, if you save one thing to it—barely degrades the person NAND cells that make up the drive, which wears it out considerably sooner than a spinning drive. Simply how a lot sooner depends upon how you employ it. That mentioned, I’ve a number of SSDs which can be greater than 5 years previous, and I’ve used them for day by day backups all through that point. None of them have had any issues.
Do you want an SSD over a spinning drive? The reply is sort of at all times sure—in the event you can afford it. However they’re particularly helpful for any drive you are working with usually: your primary boot drive, an exterior drive you employ to edit paperwork from, and for backups, in the event you want them to occur quick.
The one caveat is that in case your Mac or PC does not assist the identical USB normal because the exterior SSD you are contemplating, then you definitely is perhaps losing your cash. A drive claiming USB 3.0 speeds within the neighborhood of two,000 Mbps will do you no good if all of your laptop computer has is USB 2.0 ports. Be sure you examine the specs in your laptop computer, and do not waste your cash paying for switch speeds you may by no means see.
Which Backup Software program Ought to You Use?
The reply depends upon whether or not we’re speaking about macOS, Home windows, Linux, Android, or no matter Apple working system you is perhaps utilizing now or sooner or later. Sadly, there isn’t a one answer for all the pieces. We propose utilizing one (or two) of the storage gadgets right here and a few form of cloud storage backup as nicely. That method, even when your drives fail, your information continues to be backed up within the cloud. See our full information to backing up your digital life for our top-pick backup options for each platform.
How We Examined Exterior Onerous Drives
I examined these drives by first working them by way of a collection of benchmarking instruments. On Home windows, I take advantage of CrystalDiskMark to measure each sequential learn/write speeds and random learn/write speeds. On macOS, I do the identical with the Blackmagic Disk Velocity Check and generally AmorphousDiskMark, and on Linux, I take advantage of KDiskMark (and I normally reformat the disk from exFAT to ext4). I run checks six occasions after which take the common. Along with benchmarks, I’ve two folders for testing real-world speeds. I switch a 25-gigabyte folder of MP3 information, after which a folder with three information that collectively are 25 gigabytes in dimension. For high finish drives I additionally check learn and write speeds for ProRes RAW video information.
As soon as I’ve run the checks, I take advantage of the drive in day-to-day duties—modifying information instantly off it (booting from it within the case of naked drives), making nightly backups, tossing it in my digicam bag, and so forth. All these information factors, together with value, type issue, portability, and different performance (does it provide encryption, and so on.), go into informing the selections about which disk is greatest.
Finest for Backups
For incremental backups, which we advocate, pace is not an enormous issue. That is why the primary drive I like to recommend is that this Western Digital Components exhausting drive. I’ve been utilizing a variation of the Components desktop exhausting drive to make incremental backups of my information for greater than a decade now. These drives are massive and require exterior energy, however they’re among the most cost-effective, most dependable drives I’ve used.
Switch speeds aren’t off the charts—the Components drive I examined scored 120 megabits per second (Mbps) for sequential writes on Home windows—however once more, you must ideally be working backups in a single day anyway, and even at these speeds the common PC backup can be accomplished by morning. These drives use USB-C with assist for USB 3, and I’ve had no drawback utilizing them with Home windows, macOS, and Linux.
Storage choices go all the way in which as much as 20 terabytes. Simply examine the costs; generally you may get a 10- and even 12-TB drive for not far more than the 8-terabyte model. And I’ve not seen an enormous distinction between the Components line, the WD My Ebook drives, or the WD My Passport drives. The My Passport drives command a premium value as a result of they’re smaller, and the My Ebook drives have some encryption options that drive up the value, however I discover the fundamental Components drive is ample for most individuals.
Different Nice Backup Drives
- Seagate Growth 8-TB Exterior Onerous Drive for $159: Seagate is one other dependable drive maker. It by no means hurts to have extra backups, and in the event you do need a number of backups, use drives from totally different manufacturers, since it would cut back the possibility that each fail concurrently.
Finest for Transportable Backups
In case you journey quite a bit, you may need one thing that is simpler to hold than the Components drives, which are not the perfect in a suitcase. For backups when touring, I like Western Digital’s My Passport sequence, particularly the brand new “Extremely” model, which makes use of an ordinary USB-C twine, eliminating the necessity to carry a separate cable. It isn’t the thinnest drive in the marketplace, but it surely’s lower than an inch thick and stable sufficient that I by no means fearful about tossing it in my bag. (Though it ought to be mentioned that it is a spinning drive, so do not actually toss it.) I additionally like that the corners are properly rounded and there aren’t any screws or the rest that may catch on cloth in your bag.
There are a selection of colours accessible and you may get from 1 TB to six TB. I examined the 5-TB mannequin, however Western Digital claims the identical speeds no matter drive dimension. I examined it utilizing CrystalDiskMark on Home windows, AmorphousDiskMark on macOS, and KDiskMark on Linux and averaged the outcomes to give you 121 MB/s for learn pace and 115 MB/s write pace. It isn’t what you’d need to copy photographs shortly for a consumer within the discipline, however quick sufficient to run a day by day backup in your lodge room.
Different Transportable Backup Drives
The Finest Drive for When Velocity Is All the pieces
LaCie has up to date its rugged SSD line with the Rugged Pro5. This one ditches the enduring orange padding for blue, however it’s in any other case identical to the unusual LaCie padded drives on the surface. On the within, that is an amazingly quick drive. The 5 within the title is for, you guessed it, Thunderbolt 5, which regardless of being introduced seemingly perpetually in the past, has been painfully gradual to trickle onto the market. This made testing a bit tough, however luckily a good friend let me borrow his brand-new MacBook Professional 14 for testing. And the outcomes had been spectacular.
LaCie claims learn/write speeds of as much as 6,700 MB/s and 5,300 MB/s, which it says are sufficient for real-time modifying of 8K and 6K RAW footage. In testing the best speeds, file transfers had been 5,787 MB/s learn and 5,188 MB/s write—which, whereas not fairly matching the declare, continues to be far and away the quickest drive on the web page. However uncooked speeds are simply numbers for spreadsheets; I used to be extra excited by real-world efficiency. Since I occurred to even be testing the Nikon Z6III (8/10, WIRED Recommends), which might shoot 6K ProRes RAW, I loaded an excellent little bit of footage on the Pro5 and was certainly capable of edit utilizing DaVinci Resolve Studio.
The draw back right here is the value. At $600 for the 4-TB model (which is the minimal you’d need for working with ProRes RAW video information), it is a very expensive drive. It’s nevertheless, nicely definitely worth the cash if it is pace you are after.
Finest Finances Transportable SSD
These Essential drives are my favourite general-purpose exterior storage drives. They’re fairly priced (for a conveyable SSD) and speedy sufficient for many makes use of. The X6 is light-weight and tiny, making it a sensible choice for working on the espresso store.
This is not a blinding-fast exhausting disk. Actually, beneath the hood, the X6 makes use of an older drive interface (Serial AT Attachment, or SATA), which was extra frequent with spinning exhausting drives. So whereas it is small and lightweight, its pace is restricted by that older interface know-how. In my testing on Home windows and macOS, that works out to about 550 Mbps learn pace and 208 Mbps write pace. That is adequate for backup and use as an exterior drive, however I do not advocate it for Xbox or PlayStation use. It does work fantastic with the iPad Professional although.
The most important draw back is the plastic building—it’s a conveyable exhausting drive, not an indestructible exhausting drive. In case you’re fearful about it breaking in your bag, seize a padded case. There are loads on the market, like this one. The Essential X9 (beneath) is a step up from the X6, each by way of construct high quality (it is steel to the X6’s plastic) and pace, however the X9 is significantly costlier.
Different Nice Finances Drives
- Kingston XS1000 2-TB for $120: This tiny little drive is the smallest on this information. Just like the Essential X6, it has a largely plastic enclosure, but it surely has withstood life in my bag fairly nicely. Whereas it isn’t as strong because the padded choices beneath, it is robust sufficient for many issues. It is also speedy. Kingston claims as much as 1,050 Mbps. I by no means managed that, however I routinely hit round 800 Mbps, with some older laptops nearer to 600 Mbps, which continues to be fairly good. The drive bogs down a bit with massive information (MP4s, for instance), so it isn’t the perfect for professional videographers, however for everybody else, it is a stable, barely cheaper possibility.
Finest for Photographers
Essential’s X9 Professional hits the candy spot of pace, portability, and value to be the most effective drives on the market for photographers seeking to make backups within the discipline. These drives are tiny, about half the scale of a deck of playing cards, and weigh a mere 1.3 ounces (38 grams). They will connect with absolutely anything. I examined the X9 Professional on Home windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS and by no means hit any points with any of them. On the subject of pace, the X9 Professional claims symmetrical learn and write speeds, at 1,050 Mbps. I really constantly bought larger speeds, as much as 1,110 Mbps for learn and 1,100 Mbps for write. That places the X9 Professional on the high of the pack by way of transportable drive pace.
I have been testing the X9 Professional for a number of months now, and whereas I am unable to but converse to the long-term survival charge, I’ve been testing X6 and X8 drives from Essential for over two years now with out challenge. There’s additionally the X10 Professional drive ($180), which presents even sooner speeds when you have a PC that helps USB 2X2. (The newest Intel chips assist this spec, however Apple doesn’t, so there is not any level in shopping for the X10 Professional when you have a Mac.) I don’t personal a PC that helps USB 2X2 for in depth testing, however I did get an opportunity to no less than attempt it, and the X10 Professional does certainly ship on its promise of two,100 Mbps (I bought it as much as 2,050 Mbps). In case your {hardware} helps it, the X10 Professional is price the additional cash.
Finest Go-Anyplace Drive
In case you want a drive that may stand as much as life in a backpack or digicam bag, get moist, or deal with a drop onto exhausting surfaces, OWC drives are your most suitable option. It is powerful to choose a winner right here as a result of there are lots of stable choices, however OWC’s Elektron drive narrowly beat others in benchmark checks. I additionally like which you could swap out the drive contained in the aluminum casing (it is simple to unscrew), which implies two years from now, you may decide up a sooner naked SSD and drop it within the hardy Elektron enclosure.
Different Nice Rugged SSDs
- Sabrent Rocket Nano 1-TB SSD for $120: I actually like this one. It is smaller and barely sooner than the OWC, but it surely has two drawbacks. The primary is that it might get sizzling. In case you’re attempting to work with it in your lap, it may be downright uncomfortable. The opposite challenge is that generally it is gradual to be acknowledged by my PC. I might discover no sample to this; generally it appeared straight away, and different occasions it took a few minutes. If these issues do not hassle you, this drive is tiny, cheaper, and features a padded rubber case.
Finest Padded Drive
The go-anywhere drives above are a stable answer for individuals who must make backups within the discipline, like photographers and videographers. However if you would like an additional degree of consolation, this padded drive from LaCie has lengthy been a favourite of vacationers. LaCie makes each an SSD model and a conventional spinning drive model. If pace is not a problem, as with making nightly backups, then the cheaper spinning drive makes extra sense. In case you’re backing up in the midst of a photograph shoot or comparable scenario the place backing up must occur quick, the SSD model is what you need.
Different Nice Padded Choices
- Samsung T7 Protect 2-TB SSD for $149: It is not as padded as LaCie’s rugged drives, but it surely’s cheaper and delivers practically the identical pace. It has an IP65 ranking, which implies it is fantastic within the rain and is protected against mud and sand. The T7 line is notable for its built-in security measures like hardware-based encryption, however in contrast to the Contact mannequin, the Protect doesn’t have a fingerprint reader. Nonetheless, in the event you do not want the complete padded safety of the LaCie and need to save a bit of cash, the T7 Protect is an effective possibility.
Finest Gaming Drive
Take this class with a grain of salt. Many of the drives right here will work simply fantastic for gaming (simply keep on with the quickest you may afford). That mentioned, Western Digital’s new P40 does have some cool RGB lights on the underside if that is your jam. In my testing, that did not appear to influence energy consumption.
As for pace, my checks had been inconsistent. This drive is able to speeds that handily beat each the Envoy Professional and Samsung T7, however at different occasions it appeared to lavatory down (no less than in benchmarks). In real-world use, the bottleneck I constantly hit was some lag in transferring big quantities of knowledge. That is perhaps a deal-breaker for some, however for the value, it stays a stable alternative.
Finest Naked Drive
If you wish to put a much bigger SSD in your laptop computer, all you want is a naked drive, which is mostly cheaper than the drives with enclosures listed above. The very first thing to determine is which drive your PC makes use of. Seek the advice of your producer’s documentation to seek out out. In my expertise, the most typical type issue is M.2 2280, which is the lengthy, skinny drive within the picture above. Extra compact laptops could use the same, however shorter, M.2 2242 design. Once more, examine your PC to verify the drive it wants before you purchase. There are a ton of those in the marketplace, and I have not had time to check many but, however to this point, out of the half dozen I’ve tried, Western Digital’s WD Black sequence has stood out for pace, and it does not run very popular.
The SN 770 M.2 2280 achieved speeds of 5,100 Mbps in my testing, which is blazing quick. In case you’re doing numerous drive-intensive duties, like modifying video or gaming, this drive is nicely definitely worth the cash. The biggest model you may get is 2 TB, however the value is cheap contemplating the pace improve. I have been utilizing it as my primary drive for a number of months and located it quick sufficient for all the pieces I do, together with modifying 5.2K video footage and compiling software program. My favourite half? It generates little or no warmth. My older Dell XPS 13 used to get too sizzling to make use of with out one thing between it and my lap. Now it does not get sizzling till I begin attempting to export video, however shortly cools off as quickly because it’s accomplished.
A Luxurious Improve
- Western Digital SN850X 2-TB SSD for $85: This drive is so screaming quick I needed to run my checks twice as a result of I did not imagine the primary consequence. Western Digital claims as much as 7,300 Mbps learn speeds, and in benchmark checks, this drive’s outcomes got here shut. To take full benefit of the pace right here, you may want a system that helps the PCIe 4.0 SSD normal, however it is a nice drive if you wish to improve a gaming system, whether or not it is a desktop PC or your PlayStation. This drive can also be one of many few I’ve seen that is accessible as much as 8-TB capability.
- Samsung 990 Evo Plus 2-TB for $143: The 990 EVO Plus is an improve to the very fashionable 990 EVO. The unique didn’t provide something compelling and by no means made this information, however the brand new model manages to be impressively speedy and never overly sizzling, as many Gen 5 PCIe disks I’ve examined have been. The 990 EVO Plus additionally launched with a 4-TB mannequin, one thing lacking the primary time round. By way of pace it does not fairly match the SN850X above, topping out at 5,677 MB/s learn, but it surely’s loads quick for many makes use of and stays fairly cool even when pushed. In case you’re searching for an excellent all-around drive that stays cool, this one makes a sensible choice, although it’s on the expensive aspect for what you get.