Top 5 BEST External Hard Drives In 2024

With gigabytes of cloud storage now only costing a few dollars a month and the increasing affordability of thin, external SSDs, external hard drives—which are based on spinning platter disks—might seem less necessary today. However, compared to their predecessors from a few years ago, newer ones are quicker, more fashionable, and frequently more robust. Additionally, they’re getting bigger for the money.

But selecting an external drive is more complicated than just picking the priciest model you can afford. The drive capacity is the most crucial element to take into account because, depending on your needs, it can significantly raise or lower the cost. Additional considerations include the drive’s dimensions (for example, is it made to fit on your desk or be carried around? ), its level of ruggedness, the interface it utilizes to connect to your computer, and even the colors it is available in. When you’re looking for an external hard drive, you may have questions like these and many more, which this guide will help you understand.

To begin with: We’ve included our top choices for external hard drives that we’ve tested below. Continue reading for our favorites that have been tried and tested in our labs, then check out the buying guidelines for external drives. A thorough spec breakdown of our top selections is provided at the end of the article.

QUICK LIST

Last update on 2024-05-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon.

1.Western Digital My Book

Last update on 2024-05-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon.

The Reason We Selected It

If you have a video download addiction and buy every game you come across online, you probably need a large amount of cheap storage to hold everything. With storage capacity of up to 22TB, the Western Digital My Book can accommodate millions of MP3s or images, or thousands of hours of video. It’s obvious that this desktop external hard drive is an Editors’ Choice choice because it offers a solid balance of capacity, cost, and performance.

For whom is it intended?

For our data files, which include the endless photos we’ve shot over the years, music files, and those downloaded movies we’ve been meaning to view, the majority of us require a sizable repository. To keep them all, the Western Digital My Book is a great option because it has amazing capacities and is reasonably priced per gigabyte.

2.WD My Passport (5TB)

Last update on 2024-05-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon.

The Reason We Selected It

With its robust speed, hardware encryption, and practical utilities, the 5TB WD My Passport is a great option for regular sensitive data backups or for keeping an enormous library of images, movies, and documents. My Passport drive feels and looks like a consumer device because to its slightly rounded edges and ripples. It’s also simple to hold the gadget thanks to the waves.

For whom is it intended?

The result of the manufacturer’s extra effort to add style to a plain plastic packaging is the 5TB WD My Passport. The WD My Passport is our Editors’ option option for high-capacity portable hard drives since it comes in a variety of colors, fits in a shirt pocket, and has sizes ranging from 1TB to 5TB. It’s also easy to locate reductions off list price.

3.WD Black P10 Game Drive

Last update on 2024-05-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon.

The Reason We Selected It

The WD Black P10 Game Drive looks like a container you (or your adversaries) might use for cover in the wasteland of one of the games you might store on it, with the ribbed appearance of a corrugated shipping crate. The P10 is a clear pick above more conventional options like the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch or the WD My Passport if you value the gamer look.

However, since it’s a platter-based hard drive, you’re better off moving your current games onto an SSD and using it to keep your game library. Assuming a reasonable average game size of 100GB, the 4TB model that we tested can accommodate roughly 40 titles, making it a sleek and long-lasting primary storage option for your library at a significantly lower cost than an SSD of comparable capacity.

For whom is it intended?

The WD Black P10 Game Drive is primarily intended for gamers who value the edgy shipping-container look prevalent in post-apocalyptic first-person shooter games (and a few of these films) and who want to store a library of games. When compared to housing your collection on an SSD, it’s also more affordable.

4.LaCie 2big RAID

Last update on 2024-05-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon.

The Reason We Selected It

Aimed specifically at photographers, videographers, and other content creators, the LaCie 2big RAID external hard drive receives praise for its superb design in terms of appearance and functionality. Two spinning platter drives, each with 4TB of capacity in the 8TB model we tested, are housed in the elegant gray and black casing. The 2big can be configured to appear to your computer as two independent 4TB drives, as an 8TB drive with improved performance, or as an automatic 4TB disk that is mirrored or backed up to a second drive. Without turning off the LaCie device, you can also hot-swap drives by simply sliding an old one out and a new one in without the need for any equipment.

The LaCie 2big RAID array’s default RAID 0 level amplifies the performance gain and dependability you’d expect from 7,200 rpm platters; if you desire data redundancy, you can also choose the optional RAID 1 setting. (If you prefer not to use RAID, there is also a JBOD mode available.)

For whom is it intended?

For individuals who need to store and handle large volumes of data, such as creative types, the LaCie 2big RAID desktop array offers enormous capacity. When we examined it, it was available in capacities as high as 16TB; however, it has subsequently gained much more space, reaching a staggering 40TB.

5.ADATA HD710M Pro External Hard Drive

Last update on 2024-05-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon.

The Reason We Selected It

The ADATA HD710M Pro External Hard disk is a different kind of tough hard disk. It has the best IP (ingress protection) rating of any hard drive or SSD we have evaluated, with an IP68 rating for dust resistance and waterproofing (in the last case, submerged up to two meters for up to one hour). In order to keep the detachable USB cable attached to the drive at all times—even when it is not plugged into the USB connector—the ADATA HD710M Pro additionally features grips and channels around the edges of the drive.

For whom is it intended?

For outdoor workers, the ADATA HD710M Pro is a wonderful option because it can withstand drops and still keep out dust, sand, and water. It is also more affordable per gigabyte than its solid-state counterparts.

Purchasing Guide: The Best External Hard Drives for 2024

How to Select a Hard Drive Externally

Hard drives might provide you far more space for your money, but before you buy, there’s an important distinction to be made between the two types of external storage available today: SSDs and hard drives. Solid-state drives (SSDs) provide the fastest data access since they have fewer moving components than conventional hard drives. An SSD uses a group of flash cells, which are identical to the ones that make up a computer’s RAM, to store data instead of a spinning platter or platters that are accessed by a moving magnetic head, as is the case with a traditional disk-based hard drive.

How much faster can data be accessed from flash cells? Consumer drives with spinning platters typically have read and write speeds between 100 and 200 MBps, depending on the platter density and whether it spins at 5,400 rpm (more common) or 7,200 rpm (less common). External SSDs provide at least twice that speed and frequently much more; even the slowest ones typically get scores on our benchmark tests above 400MBps. In real terms, this means that you may transfer terabytes of data—such as a 4GB movie or a year’s worth of family photos—to an external SSD in a matter of seconds as opposed to the minutes that an external spinning drive would require.

Data stored on flash cells is not only safer to read from and write to, but also faster. There is no chance that your files will get corrupted and unreadable if you bump the SSD while you’re reading its data because there isn’t a spinning platter or moving magnetic head.

Although external SSDs are now more affordable than they were a few years ago (see out the best ones we examined at the link above), spinning drives can still be used in conjunction with them. Larger external drives made to fit in a server closet or on your desk still almost entirely use spinning-drive mechanisms, which benefit from the significantly higher capacities and lower cost of platter drives in comparison to SSDs.

Which Kind of Hard Drive Should I Buy—a Desktop or a Portable One?

If you are a movie enthusiast or a photo or video editor with a sizable media file collection, you will probably require several terabytes of storage space. In that scenario, a desktop-class hard disk is your best bet. These are those that have one or more spinning platter drives inside of them and that need to be powered by an AC power cable specifically designed for that purpose. (Obviously, in this case, your files will need to remain on your desk.)

A desktop drive with a single platter mechanism usually has a 20TB capacity and is housed inside a 3.5-inch drive. Most measure about 2 inches in width and 5 inches in height. These drives can be used not just to store enormous media collections but also as low-cost storage for scheduled backups of your computer’s hard disk, using either the drive’s included software or an external backup program.

For consumer desktop drives, the next size up is roughly the same height but twice as broad in order to fit several platter-based hard disk mechanisms in the chassis. In addition to being more costly, these larger devices have significantly greater capacity—think 24TB or more (filled by two 12TB drive mechanisms in that scenario). It is not recommended to replace the drive or drives inside of these and single-platter-drive models.

Do You Need Abrupt Speed or Redundancy? Take a Look at a RAID-Capable Drive

You will very probably be able to use the accompanying software to configure a larger desktop drive as a RAID array if it has two or more discrete spinning-platter drive mechanisms inside of it. You can prioritize capacity, performance, or data redundancy, or any combination of these, based on the RAID level you select.

The speeds of a basic SSD can be roughly achieved with a collection of spinning drives set up with a RAID level optimized for faster data access; but, if you’re storing extremely vital data that you can’t afford to lose, you should look into a drive with support for RAID levels 1, 5, or 10. Click the aforementioned link to learn more about the characteristics and advantages of each RAID level. You should be aware of the specifics of each level as some demand that you forgo raw capacity in exchange for data redundancy.

Does a Secure or Rugged Hard Drive Make Sense?

If you regularly transport your drive, you should consider the drive’s durability. Certain variants come with plastic bumpers, and some even have dust and shock protection up to military requirements. (Search for support for IP67 and IP68 requirements.)

You can activate the virtually impenetrable AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption that comes with a selection of SSDs. Some have a plethora of extra security features. These range from covering the drive’s internal components with epoxy (which would destroy the electronics in the event that the drive’s casing were physically breached) to having a virtual keypad with moving letters and numbers that alter whenever the drive is connected, which keeps an observer from deducing, for example, a password based on a user’s pattern of keystrokes. Numerous of these drives are made to adhere to strict certification requirements that are required by some businesses and governmental organizations. A secure hard drive comes at a higher cost, but you can be sure that your data won’t be taken.

The warranty may be the only item you don’t really need to worry about. Does that seem counter-intuitive to you? Yes, a lengthy warranty is desirable. However, the warranty probably won’t cover it anyhow if your drive breaks because you dropped it. Most warranties just replace the drive and do not cover the expense of recovery services that try to save your data from the damaged drive, even if the failure is due to a manufacturing defect. For most people, it’s the contents of your disk that truly matter, not the drive itself.

Which External Hard Drive Is the Best to Buy, Then?

The top external hard drives (platter-based devices) that we’ve recently evaluated, in a range of costs and capacities, are listed below to help get you started in the right path. They make a good foundational mixture for your study. Remember that the majority of them have a variety of capacity choices, so even if the particular model we examined is too large or tiny for your requirements, the drive manufacturer might still have one in a size that works better for you. If you require faster performance than what a platter-based drive can provide, don’t forget to check out our suggestions for the top external SSDs.