If you are running running out of storage space on your laptop, or if you need to back up your data and store a video backlog that you’ll be editing someday (I swear, I swear), an external hard drive can solve your problem. The point is, there are hundreds of different drive options, from cheap to expensive—which one is right for your needs? I tested dozens of drives with different use cases to find the best portable storage for your workflow.
Be sure to check out our other guides, including How to back up and move your photos between services, How to back up your digital lifeand How to backup your iPhone.
Update January 2023: We’ve added Western Digital’s new P40 gaming drive. We’ve also added the latest drive stats reports from Backblaze, and prices are updated throughout.
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I know this guide is for Hand hard drive, and this one is obviously not portable, but be patient with me. For incremental backups, that we recommend, portability is not your top priority. And usually, your backup software will run overnight, so speed shouldn’t be an important factor either. That’s why the first drive I recommend is this Western Digital Elements.
I’ve been using several variants of the WD Elements desktop hard drive to create incremental backups of my data for over a decade now. They are large and require an external power source, but these are some of the cheapest, most reliable drives I’ve used. Storage options up to 20 terabytes. Just make sure you check the prices; sometimes you can get 10 or even 12 terabyte drives for no more money.
Other great backup drives:
- Seagate 8 TB Portable Hard Drive for $180: Seagate is another reliable drive manufacturer. Having more backups never hurts, and if you want to have multiple backups, use drives from different brands, as that will reduce the chance that both will fail at the same time. This 8-terabyte model usually sells for around $150.
- Western Digital Elements 5 TB Portable Hard Drive for $110: You can also get a much more portable version of the Western Digital drive for much less, and it doesn’t require an external power source. The 4-terabyte model usually sells for under $100.
These important drives are my favorite portable drives. They are reasonably priced (for a portable SSD) and very fast. The only drive I tested with faster read speeds was the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (see below). These are lightweight, which means they’re ideal when you’re working away from home. I use one to store video clips and it’s fast enough to edit them right on the disc.
The only downside is the plastic construction. Don’t expect it to last after multiple drops. If you’re worried about it getting into your pocket, get a padded box. I haven’t tried it, but there are many out there like this for $14.
This new portable drive from SanDisk beats everything else I’ve tested. It’s light, with IP22 . rating cover so it can stand on the move. It’s not the cheapest drive, but if you’re backing up in the field and want to get it done as quickly as possible, it’s your best bet. I also like that it’s more compact than some of these drives—it makes it easier to keep track of in my bag.
Other speed drives
Another way:
If you need a drive that can stand your ground backpack or camera bag, getting wet or handling on a hard surface, the OWC drive is your best bet. It’s hard to pick a winner here as there are solid choices, but OWC’s Elektron drive narrowly beat the others in the benchmark tests. I also love that you can swap out the drive inside the aluminum case (which is easy to remove), which means that two years from now, you can pick up a faster bare SSD and drop it in the Elektron.
If you want a larger drive, both physically and in terms of storage, OWC’s Envoy Pro FX ($280 for 1 TB) makes a great choice as well. It’s even faster and comes in sizes up to 4 TB, though the latter will set you back a staggering $900. For most, the 2 TB model is plenty, though still expensive at $400. that is IP67 rating and reasonable fall resistance. (Ignore any claims of “military standards”—yes no one actually does the independent testthis isn’t selected on OWC, as every manufacturer of “durable” drives claims things like this.) What impressed me most about this drive, however, is that it still performs incredibly cool. batch even under heavy loads (like editing 4K video footage directly from the drive).
Other solid options:
- Sabrent Rocket Nano SSD 1 TB for $120: I really like it today. It’s slightly smaller and faster than OWC, but it has two downsides. The first is that it can be very hot. If you’re trying to work with it in your lap, it can be downright frustrating. Another problem is that sometimes my PC recognizes slow. I can’t find a template for this; sometimes it shows up immediately, sometimes it takes a few minutes. If that doesn’t bother you, this drive is smaller, cheaper, and comes with a padded rubber case.
The portable drives above are a solid solution for those who need to create backups in the field, such as photographers and videographers. But if you want an extra level of comfort, this cushion drive from LaCie has long been a favorite with travelers. LaCie makes both SSD versions and traditional spinning drive versions. If speed is not an issue, as with nightly backups, then cheaper rotary drive more meaningful. If you’re really backing up in the middle of a photo session or a similar situation that needs to happen quickly, the SSD version is what you want.
Other padding options:
- Samsung T7 Shield 2 TB for $180: It’s not as buffered as LaCie’s rugged drives, but it’s cheaper and delivers roughly the same speed. It has one IP65 . rating, which means it’s fine in the rain and protected from dust and sand, and Samsung says it will survive drops from 9.8 feet. The T7 series is notable for its built-in security features such as hardware-based encryption, but unlike the series Touch model, Shield does not have a fingerprint reader. However, if you don’t need LaCie’s full protective padding and want to save a little money, the T7 Shield is a good choice.
Take this category with a grain of salt. Most of the drives here will work fine for gaming (just use the fastest drive you can afford). That said, Western Digital’s new P40 has some interesting RGB lights on the bottom if that’s your thing. Surprisingly in my testing, that doesn’t seem to have any impact on power consumption.
As for speed, my tests were very inconsistent. This drive is capable of speeds that beat both the Envoy Pro and the Samsung T7 with ease, but at other times it seems to be bogged down (at least in the benchmarks). In real-world usage, one bottleneck that I always run into is some lag in transferring huge amounts of data. That might be a deal breaker for some, but at this price it’s still a very solid option.
If you want to put a larger SSD in your laptop, all you need is an empty drive, which is usually cheaper than the enclosures listed above. The first thing to figure out is what drive your PC uses. Refer to the manufacturer’s documentation to find out. In my experience, the most common form factor is the M.2 2280, which is the long slim drive pictured above. More compact notebooks can use the similar but shorter M.2 2242 design. Again, check your PC to confirm the drive it needs before purchasing. There are a lot of these on the market and I haven’t had time to test many, but so far, of the half dozen I’ve tried, Western Digital’s WD Black series stand out for speed, and they just don’t. very hot.
The SN 770 M.2 2280 hit 5,100 MB per second in my testing, which is blazing fast. If you’re doing a lot of drive-intensive tasks, such as video editing or gaming, this drive is great value for money. The largest instance you can get right now is 2 TB, but it’s affordable considering the speed boost. I’ve been using it as my primary drive for a few months and have found it to be fast enough for everything I do, including editing 5.2K footage and compiling software. My favorite poop? It generates very little heat. My old Dell XPS 13 often overheats in use with nothing between it and my lap. Now it doesn’t heat up until I start trying to output the video, but cools down quickly as soon as it’s done.
Choosing the right hard drive balances three things: speed, sizeand price. If you are creating nightly backups then speed may not be an issue. Pick the cheapest drive you can find—up to a point. Drives don’t last forever, but some drives certainly last longer than others. I recommend sticking with well-known brands with a good reputation like Seagate, Western Digital and others featured here. This is partly based on experience and partly on drive failure data that Backblaze has been published for many years now. Backblaze reviews a large number of hard drives backing up customers’ data, and its report is well worth a read. The lesson learned is simple: Stick with names you know.
If the speed outweighs the price, then you want to check out the solid-state drives we’ve listed here. SSDs don’t just have the advantage of speed. They also lack moving parts, which means they’ll withstand the bumps and knocks of living in a bag on the road better than revolving drives. The downside is that they can wear out faster. Any write to an SSD—that is, when you save something to it—slightly degrades the individual NAND cells that make up the drive, wearing out the drive a bit faster than a hard drive. turn. How much faster depends on how you use it. That said, I have several SSDs that are over 5 years old, and I’ve been using them for daily backups all that time. None of them had any problems.
When do you want an SSD on a spinning drive? The answer is almost always yes if you can afford it. But they’re especially useful for any drive you work with regularly: the main boot drive, the external drive you use to edit documents, and even for backups if you need them to take place. fast.
