Products with 1TB on board will provide plenty of space for most consumers. CapacityĬhoosing the storage capacity of your external storage drive depends on your specific needs and budget. Their retail packages include a USB-C cable and a USB-A cable or adapter for connecting them to older hardware. Lower-priced USB 3.1-compatible SSDs are acceptable for non-essential storage tasks.Īll portable drives on this list rock a convenient USB-C connector.

The futureproof protocol will get you fast and reliable data transfer speeds for years after your purchase. Up-to-date USB 3.2 (or higher) connectivity is a must if you shop for a solid-state drive. A portable HDD costs much less than a solid-state equivalent, so I’d recommend it if you are looking for big capacity on a very tight budget. Their maximum transfer speed is nowhere near an SSD's, but neither is their pricing. HDDs feature old-school technology with moving parts. In this day and age, I’d recommend an external SSD to anyone in a heartbeat. In most cases, external SSDs are the ones to get because they are smaller, tougher, and, crucially, capable of producing much faster data transfer speeds than hard drives. This is why we combed through products and scrutinized hardware specs for weeks to determine the best for your files and backups.īefore you invest in external storage, you need to decipher whether you need a solid-state drive (SSD) or a hard drive (HDD).

Today’s market for external hard drives and portable SSDs is jam-packed with great products that start well below $100. Best of all, they're more affordable than ever, allowing you to increase your data storage speeds and security without breaking the bank. Thankfully, external storage drives that utilize much faster solid-state memory chips with no moving parts have become the industry norm. I remember waiting more than an hour to back up my data to an old-school hard drive the size of an encyclopedia and with a separate power adapter. An external hard drive is a must-have tech accessory that can help you back up your entire computer, safeguard work projects and your life’s memories, and extend the storage capacity of your gaming console, to name just a few critical tasks.īack in the day, external hard drives used to be bulky, expensive, and slow.

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