Remember that this is a portable hard drive, which means that you can easily carry it around. It is not bulky as a desktop hard drive and doesn't need an external power supply. The drive we reviewed is the largest of the range and features Seagate's Dashboard software, compatible with Windows and Mac OS. Users Say:“This drive was easy to install and to use. Great investment to protect my photographs. 8TB of storage for a reasonable price and the product is very sturdy. Now I can free up space on my computer.” Tech Specs & Details How about a portable external hard drive? Compact and handy, it's ideal for long journeys or holidays. Simply pop them in the bag and carry it wherever you go, it will make sure your memories are stored and protected so that you can cherish them later. If you need to store data on your computer, then our desktop external hard drive is an ideal choice. Our collection offers storage up to 8 TB. Save files in a single location or you can even free the space on the internal drive of your computer for better performance. From SSD hard drives to HDD hard drives, we have a lot in our collection. Not sure which one to get? Browse our hard drive guide and get all the information you need with your tech queries. Provided you have a USB 3.2 Gen 2 2×2 PC or laptop you can expect read speeds in excess of 1700MB/sec, with write speeds around 30MB/sec slower. Over a straight USB 3.2 Gen 2 connection, both read and write speeds stabilise at around 965MB/sec, which isn’t a massive improvement over 2020’s 1050MB/sec model. Yet it’s the random read/write speeds that are really impressive, reaching up to 206MB/sec and 226MB/sec, making this a good drive for apps and games as well as media. Looking for maximum performance for your most demanding applications? This is one of the strongest options. This means that much of the speed will be wasted on the Xbox Series S/X and PS5 consoles, where the P50 could be used to store games you aren’t playing or run last-generation titles. On a fast PC with the right connection, though, it’s an absolute beast. It’s also happy working in the most demanding content creation apps, making it one powerful and versatile external drive.

For mechanical hard disks, the very fastest drives max out at 2Gbits/sec so there’s no need to go beyond USB 3.2 Gen 1. Are there any extra features worth having? It was all so simple once upon a time. USB 3 was your baseline. It offered a theoretical transfer rate of up to 5Gbits/sec (with real-world speeds closer to 300MB/sec). Then you had USB 3.1, offering speeds up to 10Gbits/sec and USB 3.2 delivering speeds up to 20Gbits/sec. Note that various vendors use different nomenclatures. WD confusingly has two categories - external drives and portable drives - but includes products in the latter category in the former one while archrival Seagate categorizes them as desktop drives and portable drives. You will note that they removed the word "hard" and that's for a good reason: increasingly portable drives are based on flash components and in a near future - given the rapid drop in hardware pricing - we wouldn't be surprised to see multiple SSDs combined in a "desktop drive" How to choose the best external hard drive for youSome professional portable HDDs and SSDs also support Intel’s Thunderbolt technology, with maximum speeds of 40Gbits/sec (4.8GB/sec) for Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4. USB 4 ports and drives are also starting to appear with speeds to match, though you may have to wait a while before the SSDs themselves can max them out. Not only is the Fantom DrivesGF3B10000UP one of the faster 10TB external hard drives on the market, but it’s also currently on a 7% discount. This hard drive is entirely compatible with Xbox One, Macintosh, and PC. Providing 7200 RPM, it’s impressively fast which saves you precious time. It’s 2.2 pounds and only 7.75 inches tall, 4.75 inches wide, and 1.4 inches deep. We primarily recommend it for anyone looking for a faster than normal 10TB external hard drive! Over the Type-C connection you get sequential read speeds of 1090MB/sec and write speeds of 1050MB/sec, although these drop to 469MB/sec and 461MB/sec over the slower Type-A. Random read/write speeds are speedy either way, peaking at 262MB/sec and 241MB/sec. While it’s not in the same league for speed as the fastest USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 SSDs, it’s an effective all rounder at a price more of us can afford.

It is also well suited as long-term multimedia storage hooked up to a PC or large-screen smart TV from Sony or a recent Samsung as well - some smart TVs support NTFS and FAT32 or NTFS and ExFat, very rarely do they support all three file systems. This new drive from Toshiba has a few advantages over older favourites from Seagate And Western Digital. First, it’s relatively fast by HDD standards, with sequential read speeds of over 150MB/sec and write speeds of 160MB/sec. It’s actually a smidgen faster than the excellent Canvio Gaming. And while its random read/write speeds aren’t anything to write home about, they’re no worse than those of comparable drives, and we’d recommend an SSD these days for actively running Windows apps or games.If you deal with any sensible information leaving it in an unencrypted drive is risky. While encryption can be done in software with a high degree of fine-tuning, nothing beats a purely hardware-based solution that frees you from the software-configuration complexities. A relatively new entry in Toshiba’s Canvio line-up, you can guess who the Canvio Gaming is aimed at. It gives you more space to run and store games on your last-gen Xbox One or PS4 console, and makes an ideal archive drive for games you’re not currently playing on an Xbox Series console, PS5 or PC. Sequential transfer speeds – 149.79MB/sec read and 156.78MB/sec write – are well above average, while its random write speeds are surprisingly good, though its random read speeds don’t really measure up. You can trust LaCie to bring a little style to storage, and its latest Mobile Drive is another distinctive effort, with an angular, all-aluminium design enhanced by diamond-cut edges and a choice of space grey and moon silver MacBook-matching finishes. But while the looks are important, they’re not all this drive has to rely on. The drive comes preloaded with Buffalo's "ModeChanger" utility for Windows and Mac that switches it from Open to Secure and vice-versa. Mode switching takes less than a minute and the drive must be reformatted after that. Just recently, theSeagate (STEL10000400)had a drastic reduction in price 36% off the original amount. Although we’re unsure if this discount is permanent or temporary, we believe it’s a remarkable 10TB external hard drive. It provides two USB 3.0 ports and a 2-year limited warranty.

Last but not least, the G-Technology 10TB is a phenomenal 10TB external hard drive with both USB-C and Thunderbolt 3. There are a plethora of reasons why we love it. It has a robust aluminum case build, a stylish design, it has a high-speed transfer rate, and an impressive 5-year limited warranty. Overall, it’s a pricey, but exceptional hard drive! External hard drives come in various storage space amounts any from 1 terabyte all the way up to 24 terabytes and almost everything between. What does an external hard drive do? It’s also built to withstand working in extreme conditions, thanks to an ultra-rugged aluminium and rubber enclosure that’s IP68 dust and water resistant, 3m drop resistant and 4,000lb crush resistant. It is extremely pricey, but if you want the fastest, toughest drive in town, then you’re just going to have to pony up the dough.

Thunderbolt ports, should you need to daisy-chain storage, devices and display. This is particularly useful at the high end of the market where creative professionals are particularly fond of this port Now that SSDs are becoming more affordable, buying an external HDD is all about getting the maximum capacity for the lowest price without compromising on performance or reliability. The G-Technology0G05678 is another fantastic external hard drive with a massive 10TB of storage space. Uniquely, it has a modern sleek design which is much more attractive than the standard hard drive. Along with that, it’s currently on a large 23% discount, as well.

What sets this drive apart aside from the gaming aesthetics is its total compatibility. Since it comes pre-formatted with the ExFAT file system in addition to being compatible with PCs and Macs it's plug-and-play compatible with the Sony PlayStation 4, PS5 and the Microsoft Xbox One. Say hello to hard drives- the perfect solution for all your storage problems. Store as many pictures, videos, audio files, movies or documents as you want with our range of external hard drives. We have a selection from all the brands like Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung and more, so that you find what you are looking for. Remember: no matter how fast the port is, if the hard disk or SSD within the drive can’t run fast enough, you won’t see any benefits. The same goes if your computer doesn’t support that connection speed; you’d be surprised how few desktops and laptops have even a single USB 3.2 gen 2×2 port. RAID (redundant array of inexpensive drives) which is a smart way of either improving your drive speed - at the cost of reliability - or improving reliability - at the cost of capacity. Given that even our fastest USB Type-C drive – the Kingston XS2000 – could only reach 2GB/sec over USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, that’s extremely impressive. From editing 4K, or even 8K, video to gaming, there’s nothing that this drive can’t handle.If capacity is what you are after, then 5TB is the maximum you will get for a portable drive. 22TB is the largest single-drive capacity currently on the market (as of November 2022). If you want even higher capacities, you may want to consider Network Attached Storage ( NAS) which can scale all the way to hundreds of Terabytes.