Jon Martindale
Using one of the best external hard drives is just part of the process in protecting your most important data, but it's an important part. While online backups require a constant internet connection and are restricted to your internet speed when backing up and restoring, a local backup on an external drive is fast and readily accessible.
The best external hard drives also let you take your data on the go without fear of your data being damaged or lost. They're compact, attractive and offer protection against the digital (and sometimes physical) world, making sure that the digital information that you hold most dear is always safe and secure.
WD 5TB My PassPort Ultra
Western Digital, or WD, makes some of the most popular internal and external drives the world over. Its My Passport line has been a standard for many years and many generations, and the latest is the most capable yet. Available in capacities from 1TB to 5TB, this version is one of the most cost effective of the bunch and it offers the best performance, for a winning combination.
It features a single USB-C connector for power and data transfer, with support for USB 3.0 speeds. It's not the fastest drive in the world and doesn't have the fastest connection standard, but it's quick enough for regular transfers. If you leave it plugged in, you can also take advantage of WD Backup for PC software, which automatically backs up your most important files and folders.
Hardware encryption is an option with every My Passport Ultra drive, giving you an additional layer of protection (though past usability concerns with WD's solution mean we'd encourage you to use a third-party alternative for longer term storage) and there's a three year warranty, so you can rest assured knowing your new drive should keep your data protected for years to come.
Fastest External Hard Drive
Samsung X5 Portable
The Samsung X5 is technically a portable SSD rather than a hard drive, but it's an external drive nonetheless, and with this particular hardware makeup, it is exceedingly fast; many orders of magnitude faster than every other drive on this list. The model listed here tops out at a meager 500GB capacity (the 1TB and 2TB models are much more expensive), but if that's enough for what you want to carry around with you, this drive will give you near-immediate access to everything it stores.
Official figures give this drive a sequential read and write speed of 2,800MBps and 2,100MBps respectively. That's faster than any SATA hard drives (internal or external) and rivals some of the fastest internal NVMe drives too.
As an SSD, this drive is unique among its hard drive contemporaries in that it’s much more resistant to shock damage. There are no moving parts in an SSD, so it can handle drops and bangs that even protected hard drives can't, and also holds up longer to normal wear and tear. It also has its own digital password-secured, 256-bit AES hardware encryption and ships with a three year warranty.FORBES.COMNewegg Promo Codes | 15% Off In December 2020 | Forbes
Best Durable External Hard Drive
Lacie Rugged mini 4TB
Need to take your data somewhere dangerous? Worried you might drop your external drive on something hard? The Lacie Rugged is the drive for you. With a 4TB capacity at a great price, this tough little drive is packed inside a sturdy metal casing and surrounded by a rubber guard barrier to ward off the worst of drops and bangs.
This gives the internals enough shock protection to prevent any hard drive damage from drops as high as 1.2m and makes it capable of resisting up to a ton of passive pressure, so don't be concerned with accidentally standing on it. The full enclosure even gives this drive an IP54 rating, making it well protected against dust and water splashes (though not 100% impermeable) from any angle. No need to worry about getting caught in the rain with this external hard drive.
USB 3.0 isn't particularly fast, but it's enough for the above average 130MBPs read speed of this drive. Its mini-USB connector is a little antiquated. There is a newer USB-C version, but at nearly $20 more, it's not as easy to recommend.
Best Budget External Hard Drive
WD 2TB Elements
If you don't have a big budget but need big storage, WD is here to save the day again with its WD 2TB Elements portable hard drive. It's not fast, it's not exceedingly pretty, but it has a decent capacity at a very affordable price. While you can get a slightly better dollar to terabyte ratio with bigger drives, none are as cheap as this one.
If you don't mind paying more, you can go up to 5TB for just over $100, which is far cheaper than other comparably sized drives too. All of them measure just a few inches in every dimension, so this drive is small enough to slip into a bag or pocket if you want to take it with you.
Whatever capacity you opt for, USB-A 3.0 support delivers decent transfer speeds, and it's compatible with both Windows and Mac PCS. You also get a two year warranty and 30 days of phone support thrown in for good measure.
Best External Hard Drive for Xbox and PlayStation
WD Black 5TB Game Drive
Expanding your internal storage is something every console gamer has had to face at some point, whether you paid extra for the larger capacity system or not. External drives won't give you the best load times—and are flat out not recommended for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 consoles—but they are one of the most affordable ways to have a much larger local game library. The best external hard drives, like the WD Black Game Drive, are a pretty good middle ground too, offering decent performance with massive capacity at a good price.
With 5TB of space you can store over 100 games on a single one of these drives, giving you more than enough space for your digital library—no longer will you have to ponder uninstalling the games you're not actively playing.
This drive uses a micro-USB connector, which isn't the most forward thinking of ports, but it does support USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds, so can transfer at up to 5Gbps (or roughly 625MBps). That's far more than its read speeds will allow, but at least you know the connector won't bottleneck your transfers. As can often be important for gamers, this drive looks the part too. It features a rugged, metallic exterior, giving it an industrial aesthetic that many of the best external hard drives do not.
Best Small External Hard Drive
Maxone 320GB Ultra Slim
The Maxone 320GB Ultra Slim is an attractive external hard drive with a very low price and a small capacity. It's also physically diminutive, making it very easy to slip into a bag or pocket and take it with you for a little additional storage space on the go. If you want to shave a couple more dollars off of the price, you can opt for the 250GB version, but on a dollar-per-gigabyte level, this is one of the best configurations.
Available in a variety of colors—including gold, black and rose pink—the Maxone Ultra Slim is an attractive option for those who don't need massive storage space, but would still like to keep their important data close at hand. Its aluminum enclosure gives it modest protection against knocks and drops, but don't test that often as the internals are delicate.
This drive won’t deliver monstrous performance, but it is big and fast enough to hold a considerable amount of movies and TV shows, or even a few game installs if you want to take your favorite game to your friend's house.
Do you need an external hard drive, or external SSD?
It depends what your budget is and what you want to use it for. If you need a massive drive to store all your photos, videos and important documents, hard drives are much more economical. It'll take longer to copy files to and from the drive, but that's not so important for a longer-term backup solution.
If you want a drive for immediate access, and plan to regularly back up to or restore from it, an SSD is a better bet. They're also very robust compared to hard drives, as they feature no moving parts, so can more easily resist drops and knocks. Know that you'll have to pay considerably more for SSD speed though, so you’re getting a much smaller hard drive for the money.
How big a drive do you need?
If you want to store a personal photo and video collection, 1-2TB should be more than enough for anyone. Even tens of thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos are unlikely to go over 1TB, but that leaves plenty of room for future snaps you take on higher resolution cameras and phones.
If you want to store your favorite movie collection, or need to backup footage you take from professional grade cameras at super high resolutions, then the more storage space you can get, the better. A 3-4TB drive is a good target while staying within a modest budget, but you can go up to 5TB if your library is particularly exhaustive.
If you need more space than that, you'll have to look into multiple drives, or network attached storage instead, where the sky is the limit with how much space you can have. It's just nowhere near as portable.
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