Deeper Dive: Our High Examined Picks
Greatest Desktop Exhausting Drive for Most Folks
Western Digital My Guide
If you happen to’re hooked on downloading movies and snapping up each recreation yow will discover on-line, likelihood is you want cheap, voluminous storage to accommodate all of it. The Western Digital My Guide, now out there in capacities as much as a whopping 22TB, can maintain 1000’s of hours of video, or tens of millions of MP3s or pictures. With a very good mixture of capability, pricing, and efficiency, it is a shoo-in as an Editors’ Alternative choose for desktop exterior exhausting drives.
Most of us want a big repository for our knowledge information, together with the scads of images we have taken through the years, music information, and people downloaded motion pictures we have been which means to look at. The Western Digital My Guide is a wonderful option to retailer all of them, providing super capacities at a low value per gigabyte..
Drive Kind
Exterior Desktop
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.0
Capability
8 TB
Spin Charge
5400 rpm
Cables Included
USB Micro-B-to-A
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
Western Digital My Guide Overview
Greatest Moveable Exhausting Drive for Most Folks
WD My Passport, Works with USB-C (6TB)
The WD My Passport, Works with USB-C is now out there on the highest capability (6TB) of any pocketable, spinning exhausting drive available on the market right now. Regardless of its identify, it connects through a USB Micro-B port—its included cable is a USB Micro-B-to-USB-A, plus an A-to-C dongle for connecting to a pc’s USB-C port. Its speeds on our benchmarks had been really somewhat quicker than the same 6TB WD My Passport Extremely with its native USB-C port—although nonetheless far beneath moveable SSD speeds—and it’s priced somewhat decrease.
Spinning exhausting drives survive on this age of superfast moveable SSDs attributable to their low value per gigabyte, and the 6TB WD My Passport, Works with USB-C lists at a minuscule 3.2 cents per gig whereas bringing the very best capability now out there in a conveyable exhausting drive. Acronis True Picture backup software program and 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption additional sweeten the pot. This drive is a winner for customers who search excessive capability and good worth in a platter exhausting drive, and who recognize built-in software program and security measures.
Drive Kind
Exterior Moveable
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.2
Capability
6 TB
Spin Charge
5400 rpm
Cables Included
USB Micro-B-to-A, USB-A-to-C adapter
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
WD My Passport, Works with USB-C (6TB) Overview
Greatest Moveable Exhausting Drive for Avid gamers
WD Black P10 Recreation Drive
With the ribbed look of a corrugated delivery crate, the WD Black P10 Recreation Drive’s styling provides it the looks of a container you (or your enemies) may use for canopy within the wasteland of one of many video games you may retailer on it. If you happen to recognize the gamer aesthetic, the P10 is an apparent selection over extra vanilla choices just like the WD My Passport or the Seagate Backup Plus Extremely Contact.
That stated, as a platter-based exhausting drive, it is best outfitted to retailer a recreation library; you are higher off loading the video games you are presently taking part in from an SSD. If you happen to conservatively determine a median recreation dimension of 100GB, the 4TB model examined right here can maintain about 40 titles, serving as the trendy principal repository of your assortment for years to come back, and for a way more modest outlay than you’d spend on an SSD of comparable capability.
The WD Black P10 Recreation Drive is primarily for avid gamers to retailer a recreation library and who recognize the edgy shipping-container aesthetic that is a standard motif in post-apocalyptic FPS video games (and some such motion pictures as effectively). It is also cost-effective in contrast with utilizing an SSD to accommodate your library.
Drive Kind
Exterior Moveable
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.0
Capability
4 TB
Spin Charge
5400 rpm
Cables Included
USB Micro-B-to-A
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
WD Black P10 Recreation Drive Overview
Greatest Desktop Exhausting Drive for Inventive Execs
LaCie 2big RAID
The LaCie 2big RAID exterior exhausting drive, aimed squarely at videographers, photographers, and different content material creators, earns kudos for design excellence in each appears and options. The good-looking grey and black case homes two spinning-platter drives—4TB every within the 8TB model we examined. You possibly can configure the 2big so your laptop sees it as two separate 4TB drives, as a single 8TB drive with quicker efficiency, or as a 4TB drive that is robotically mirrored or backed as much as the second. It’s also possible to hot-swap drives, simply sliding an previous one out and a brand new one in with no instruments, with out turning the LaCie unit off.
The LaCie 2big RAID array guarantees the reliability and delivers the efficiency profit you’d anticipate from 7,200rpm platters, magnified by the default RAID 0 setting, whereas the non-obligatory RAID 1 setting is obtainable in order for you knowledge redundancy. (A JBOD mode can be out there for those who do not need to use RAID.)
The LaCie 2big RAID desktop array affords cavernous capability to artistic sorts and others who have to retailer and work with huge quantities of information. Accessible in capacities as much as 16TB after we reviewed it, it has since added even greater quantity, as much as a monstrous 40TB.
Drive Kind
Exterior Desktop
System-Facet Interface
Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.0
Capability
8 TB
Spin Charge
7200 rpm
Cables Included
USB-C to USB-C, USB-C to USB-A
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
5 12 months(s)
Different Options
Sizzling swappable drives
Study Extra
LaCie 2big RAID Overview
Greatest Rugged Moveable Exhausting Drive for Home windows Customers
ADATA HD710M Professional Exterior Exhausting Drive
There are rugged exhausting drives, after which there’s the ADATA HD710M Professional Exterior Exhausting Drive. Its IP (ingress safety) ranking of IP68 for mud resistance and waterproofing (within the final case, submerged as much as two meters for as much as one hour) matches the most effective ranking of any exhausting drive or SSD we’ve got reviewed. The ADATA HD710M Professional additionally has grips and channels across the edges of the drive to maintain the removable USB cable tethered to the drive always, even when not plugged into the USB connector.
The ADATA HD710M Professional is an efficient selection for out of doors staff, because the drive is ready to take a tumble, and preserve out water, sand, and mud. It is available in at a greater value per gigabyte than its solid-state brethren as effectively.
Drive Kind
Exterior Moveable
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.0
Capability
2 TB
Spin Charge
5400 rpm
Cables Included
USB Micro-B-to-A
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
ADATA HD710M Professional Exterior Exhausting Drive Overview
Greatest Rugged Moveable Exhausting Drive for Mac Customers
SanDisk Skilled G-Drive ArmorATD
The SanDisk Skilled G-Drive ArmorATD is an economical, semi-rugged exterior exhausting drive out there in capacities as much as 5TB. As a spinning (5,400rpm) platter drive, its velocity cannot evaluate with an SSD, but it surely ought to work effectively for vacationers or cellular staff who want plenty of capability for the spend. With a rubber bumper and inside shock mounts, the ArmorATD is rated to outlive as much as 1,000 kilos of strain or a drop from 3.3 ft. Its ingress safety (IP) ranking of IP54 guarantees some safety in opposition to sand and rain. It comes formatted in Mac-friendly HFS+, one in every of two codecs (together with APFS) appropriate with the macOS Time Machine backup system. If you happen to solely have a Home windows laptop, you might (fastidiously) reformat it to NTFS, however you’ll in all probability be higher off getting a tough drive already formatted in NTFS or exFAT.
Like different merchandise within the SanDisk Skilled line, the G-Drive ArmorATD is strongly geared to Mac use. It is best for touring Mac customers on the lookout for a drive that may face up to a tumble or a rainstorm and need higher capability for the worth than they might get with an SSD.
Drive Kind
Exterior Moveable
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.0
Capability
2 TB
Spin Charge
5400 rpm
Cables Included
USB-C to USB-C, USB-C to USB-A
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
SanDisk Skilled G-Drive ArmorATD Overview
Greatest Safety-Minded Desktop Exhausting Drive
iStorage DiskAshur DT2
With cavernous capability and a minuscule value per gigabyte in contrast with security-centric SSDs, the iStorage DiskAshur DT2—a desktop-style exhausting drive—is a formidable answer for companies, establishments, and businesses needing to maintain delicate knowledge secure. With a slew of protecting options and boasting a formidable set of certifications, this PIN-authenticated exterior drive is straightforward for approved customers to entry however impervious to makes an attempt by outsiders to interrupt in. As a desktop exhausting drive, it isn’t USB-powered, however as a substitute should be plugged into its included AC adapter. As it’s going to typically be utilized in an workplace or server room setting, it lacks any ruggedness options to talk of—the safety it affords is from human threats.
The DT2 is not slim or moveable like many exterior drives—in type, it’s a traditional desktop spinning exhausting drive. However it’s simple for approved customers to unlock and entry utilizing its built-in keypad, and it has a slew of security measures and certifications to guarantee you it will preserve unhealthy guys out. If that you must retailer and defend massive volumes of information, it is a nice selection.
Drive Kind
Exterior Moveable
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.2
Capability
14 TB
Spin Charge
7200 rpm
Cables Included
USB-B to USB-A
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
iStorage DiskAshur DT2 Overview
Greatest Ornamental Moveable Exhausting Drive
WD My Passport Extremely Restricted Version Dragon
We love that the highest of the My Passport Extremely Restricted Version Dragon is adorned with a fantastic golden dragon in opposition to a crimson background. Its enchantment is not only skin-deep; its mixture of attributes, together with hardware-based encryption, backup software program, USB-C connectivity, a three-year guarantee, and a aggressive value is what has made drives within the My Passport Extremely line frequent PCMag Editors’ Alternative winners.
It might have particular enchantment for individuals who have a good time the Lunar New Yr, particularly those that had been born within the Yr of the Dragon, but it surely’s a drive that anybody might love, for its lovely dragon illustration in addition to its beneficiant function set, portability, strong efficiency, and aggressive value. It’s not for individuals looking for speedy storage; as a spinning exhausting drive, its efficiency is plodding in contrast with even essentially the most fundamental exterior SSD. And if you’re on the lookout for capability, it’s capped at 2TB, whereas different My Passport drives provide a minimum of twice that quantity.
Drive Kind
Exterior Moveable
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.2 Gen 1
Capability
2 TB
Spin Charge
5400 rpm
Cables Included
USB-C to USB-A
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
WD My Passport Extremely Restricted Version Dragon Overview
Greatest-Designed Moveable Exhausting Drive
LaCie Cellular Drive (2022)
Sporting a tasteful silver-and-black chassis, the LaCie Cellular Drive (2022) is a mildly redesigned model of the corporate’s exterior exhausting drive that we reviewed in March 2019. Accessible in capacities as much as 5TB, the brand new drive is straightforward to arrange and use. Its LaCie Toolkit software program permits backup, restore, and mirroring. Its contact of favor brings a barely greater value than different exterior spinning exhausting drives, nevertheless.
The 2022 iteration of the LaCie Cellular Drive is an efficient selection for anybody who values capability over velocity, and who appreciates a uncommon contact of magnificence in a platter-based exhausting drive. It prices a tad extra per gigabyte than a lot of its platter-based ilk, however lower than SSDs of equal capability.
Drive Kind
Exterior Moveable
System-Facet Interface
USB 3.2
Capability
5 TB
Spin Charge
5400 rpm
Cables Included
USB-C to USB-C
Guarantee (Components/Labor)
3 12 months(s)
Study Extra
LaCie Cellular Drive (2022) Overview
Shopping for Information: The Greatest Exterior Exhausting Drives for 2025
Select an Exterior Exhausting Drive
Exhausting drives might get you extra capability on your greenback by far, however first that you must take into account a serious distinction in exterior storage nowadays: the exhausting drive versus the SSD. Strong-state drives (SSDs) have fewer shifting elements than conventional exhausting drives, and so they provide the speediest entry to your knowledge. In contrast to a traditional disk-based exhausting drive, which shops knowledge on a spinning platter or platters accessed by a shifting magnetic head, an SSD makes use of a group of flash cells—just like those that make up a pc’s RAM—to save lots of knowledge.
Simply how a lot quicker is it to entry knowledge saved in flash cells? Typical learn and write speeds for shopper drives with spinning platters are within the 100MBps to 200MBps vary, relying on platter densities and whether or not they spin at 5,400rpm (extra frequent) or 7,200rpm (much less frequent). Exterior SSDs provide a minimum of twice that velocity and now, typically rather more, with typical outcomes on our benchmark exams in extra of 400MBps for the slowest ones. Virtually talking, this implies you’ll be able to transfer gigabytes of information (say, a 4GB feature-length movie, or a 12 months’s value of household pictures) to an exterior SSD in seconds fairly than the minutes it might take with an exterior spinning drive.
Not solely is it quicker to learn and write knowledge saved in flash cells, but it surely’s additionally safer. As a result of there is no such thing as a spinning platter or shifting magnetic head, for those who bump the SSD whilst you’re accessing its knowledge, there is no such thing as a threat that your information will develop into corrupted and unreadable.
(Credit score: Molly Flores)
Nonetheless, whereas exterior SSDs are cheaper than they had been a number of years in the past (see the most effective we have examined on the previous hyperlink), they’re removed from an entire substitute for spinning drives. Bigger exterior drives designed to remain in your desk or in a server closet nonetheless virtually completely use spinning-drive mechanisms, benefiting from platter drives’ a lot greater capacities and far decrease costs in contrast with SSDs.
Moveable exhausting drives could be a nice worth if what you want is uncooked capability above all else. You will discover a 2TB moveable exhausting drive for lower than $100 with ease (presumably even a 4TB one, relying on the day), whereas 5TB exhausting drives go for about $150 and 6TB fashions for about $180. A 2TB SSD, although? Anticipate to pay round twice as a lot as you’ll for that 2TB exhausting drive. Likewise, most 4TB exterior SSDs begin round $300, and most 8TB fashions begin at $600 and up.
Ought to I Get a Desktop Exhausting Drive, or a Moveable Exhausting Drive?
You probably have a big media-file assortment—maybe you’re a photograph or video editor, or perhaps a film buff—you will doubtless want a number of terabytes of house wherein to retailer it. In that case, your only option is a desktop-class exhausting drive. We outline these as having a number of spinning-platter drives inside and requiring a devoted energy cable plugged into AC energy to work. (After all, on this state of affairs, your information are going to have to remain at your desk.)
(Credit score: Molly Flores)
A desktop drive with a single platter mechanism will usually use a 3.5-inch drive inside and is available in capacities as much as round 20TB. Most are roughly 5 inches tall and a pair of inches broad. Along with storing massive media collections, these drives may function cheap repositories for backups of your laptop’s exhausting drive that you simply schedule, utilizing both software program that comes with the drive or a third-party backup utility.
The subsequent dimension up for shopper desktop drives is about the identical peak however twice as broad, to accommodate a couple of platter-based exhausting drive mechanism within the chassis. These bigger fashions are costlier but in addition rather more capacious—assume 24TB or extra (in that case, populated by two 12TB drive mechanisms). Within the case of those and single-platter-drive merchandise, you are not meant to swap out the drive or drives inside.
(Credit score: Zlata Ivleva)
The most important desktop drives are sometimes a lot, a lot bulkier than the primary two classes, so massive that you’re going to need to stick them below your desk or in a devoted server closet. They’re principally meant for skilled use in enhancing studios, surveillance management rooms, and the like. Their defining attribute is the power to swap drives out and in of their multi-bay chassis simply, so most present fast entry to the drive bays on the entrance of the gadget.
Most such multi-bay units are bought with out the precise exhausting drives included, so you’ll be able to set up any drive you need (often, 3.5-inch drives, however some help laptop-style 2.5-inchers). Their complete storage capacities are restricted solely by their variety of out there bays and the capacities of the drives you place in them. Some within the storage trade refer to those (in addition to smaller-capacity externals as a complete) as DAS—for “direct hooked up storage”—to differentiate them from NAS, or community hooked up storage, a lot of that are additionally multi-bay units that may take two or extra drives that you simply provide. (See our separate roundup of the most effective NAS drives.)
On the different finish of the physical-size spectrum are moveable drives. Exhausting drive-based portables make use inside the identical sorts of platter-drive mechanisms utilized in laptops. These are referred to as generically “2.5-inch drives,” although they’re really a smidge wider than that. Any moveable platter-based exhausting drive ought to match simply in a handbag or perhaps a coat pocket. As a rule, moveable drives get their energy from the pc to which you join them, via the interface cable, so there isn’t any want for a wall outlet or an influence wire/brick.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
One of the best ways to gauge relative worth amongst comparable moveable drives is to calculate the associated fee per gigabyte, dividing the price of the drive in {dollars} by the capability in gigabytes to see the relative per-gig value. Instance: A $60 1TB (1,000GB) exhausting drive would run you about 6 cents per gigabyte, whereas an $80 2TB (2,000GB) drive would work out to about 4 cents per gigabyte.
Want Redundancy or Excessive Pace? Contemplate a RAID-Enabled Drive
If you happen to purchase a bigger desktop drive with two or extra discrete spinning-platter drive mechanisms inside, you will virtually definitely have the choice to configure the drive as a RAID array utilizing included software program. Relying on which RAID Stage you select, you’ll be able to prioritize capability, velocity, or knowledge redundancy, or some mixture thereof.
(Credit score: Zlata Ivleva)
A group of spinning drives configured with a RAID Stage designed for quicker knowledge entry can approximate the speeds of a fundamental SSD, whilst you ought to take into account a drive with help for RAID Ranges 1, 5, or 10 for those who’re storing actually essential knowledge you could’t afford to lose. Hit the hyperlink above for an evidence of the traits and strengths of every RAID Stage. Some require you to sacrifice uncooked capability for knowledge redundancy, so you will need to take note of the nuances of every one.
Which Drive Interface Ought to I Get?
How an exterior drive connects to your PC or Mac is second solely to the kind of storage mechanism it makes use of in figuring out how briskly you can entry knowledge. These connection sorts are ever in flux, however nowadays, most exterior exhausting drives use a taste of USB or, in uncommon instances, Thunderbolt.
Proper now, the quickest connection kind in broad use on exhausting drives is Thunderbolt 3, which is helpful assuming you’ve a more recent laptop computer or desktop with a Thunderbolt 3 port. (Thunderbolt 4 is discovered on most new Macs and a few new PCs, however exhausting drives that use it are usually not but frequent.) Each Thunderbolt interfaces piggyback on a USB Kind-C connector (not all USB Kind-C ports help Thunderbolt, although) and provide blazing peak throughput of as much as 40GBps. As a bonus, a desktop drive that helps Thunderbolt may additionally include further DisplayPort and USB connections that assist you to use the drive field as a hub on your keyboard, mouse, monitor, and different peripherals. (See our explainer on Thunderbolt versus USB-C.)
You will solely see the velocity advantages of Thunderbolt, nevertheless, when you’ve got a drive that is SSD-based, or a multi-drive, platter-based desktop DAS that’s arrange in a RAID array. For strange exterior exhausting drives, Thunderbolt could be very a lot the exception, not the rule. It tends to indicate up primarily in merchandise geared towards the Mac market.
A desktop exhausting drive with a single platter-based mechanism inside, or a conveyable exhausting drive, is way extra prone to make use of plain previous USB as a substitute. Virtually each current drive we’ve got reviewed helps USB, and the identical goes for laptops and desktops. USB ports are ubiquitous, and plenty of exterior drives now include cables with each rectangular USB Kind-A connectors and oval USB Kind-C ones to allow adapter-free connections to PCs which have just one kind. If the drive consists of solely a single cable, chances are you’ll want an adapter, relying in your laptop’s out there USB ports. Be conscious of that.
(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)
Along with their bodily form variations, USB ports on the pc facet will variously help USB 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, or USB4, relying on the age of the pc and the way updated its advertising and marketing supplies are. You do not have to fret in regards to the variations amongst these three USB specs when strange exhausting drives, although. All are inter-compatible, and you will not see a velocity bump from one versus the opposite within the exhausting drive world. The drive platters’ personal velocity is the limiter, not the flavour of USB. Likewise, we’ve not seen any exhausting drives with native USB4 help, nor are we prone to. Though we’ve got seen a number of solid-state drives with USB4 interfaces (which supply the identical theoretical 40GBps most throughput velocity as does Thunderbolt), spinning exhausting drives are incapable of data-transfer speeds anyplace close to that.
The one case with exhausting drives the place the USB commonplace issues a lot is for those who join a drive to an old-style, low-bandwidth USB 2.0 port, which is healthier reserved for gadgets like keyboards and mice. (Additionally, if it is a moveable drive, that USB 2.0 port might not provide ample energy to run the drive within the first place, so the velocity shortfall could also be moot.) Any remotely current laptop may have some quicker USB 3-class ports, although.
Is a Rugged or Safe Exhausting Drive Value It?
If you happen to carry your drive round often, you will need to take note of how rugged the drive is. Some fashions embody plastic bumpers, and a few even meet army requirements for shock and mud safety. (Search for help for specs comparable to IP67 or IP68.)
A subset of drives include basically uncrackable AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption you could interact. Just a few are endowed with a number of further security measures, something from encasing the drive’s innards in epoxy (to destroy the electronics, ought to the drive’s casing be bodily breached) to sporting a digital keypad whose letters and numbers change location every time the drive is linked, to stop an onlooker from guessing, say, a password from a consumer’s sequence of keystrokes. Many such drives are designed to fulfill rigorous certification requirements mandated by some firms and authorities businesses. You pay a premium for a safe exhausting drive, however with one you’ll be able to relaxation assured that your knowledge will not be stolen.
(Credit score: Zlata Ivleva)
Maybe the one factor you need not pay all that a lot consideration to is the guarantee. Sounds counter-intuitive, maybe? Positive, a protracted guarantee is sweet. But when your drive breaks since you dropped it, the guarantee doubtless will not cowl that, anyway. Even when the drive fails due to a producing defect, most warranties merely change the drive and do not cowl the price of restoration providers that try to rescue your knowledge from the damaged drive. For most folk, the actual worth lies in what’s in your drive, not the drive itself.
Able to Purchase the Proper Exterior Exhausting Drive for You?
We belief our recommendation helped make clear what that you must know. To get you began in the best route on product picks, the exterior exhausting drives (platter-based fashions) listed below are the most effective we have examined of late, at quite a lot of costs and capacities. They seem to be a nice starter combine on your analysis. Do not forget that most of them are available in a variety of capability choices, so know that even when the particular mannequin we examined is simply too massive or small on your wants, the drive maker might provide it in a extra becoming dimension. And remember to discover our suggestions for the most effective exterior SSDs as effectively for those who want extra velocity than a platter-based drive can provide.
