Lots of storage is good to have, but you don’t want to pay extra for space that will sit unused for the life of the device. Most drives measure their capacity by terabyte, which represents 1,000 gigabytes. When it comes to capacity, you should have a real idea of how much data you have and how much you’ll have in the future.

SSDs are typically faster and smaller, but typically limit the amount of data they can hold. All the entries on this list are hard drives, which means they have spinning platters inside to store their data. It’s worth knowing the difference between SSDs and HDDs.

Here are some things you should know before digging into the world of external hard drives. Things to consider before buying an external hard drive # We also gathered input from other professionals and users. We directly compared dozens of drives on criteria such as price, feature set, size, and reliability. In addition to first-hand research, we also scoured online sources and editorial reviews. During that time, I’ve gone through literally dozens of different hard drives, which has given me valuable personal experience. I have also worked as a professional photographer and videographer.

I have been writing about gadgets and computer gear for nearly two decades now.

What kind of connectivity do you need? How fast should your drive be? And will it be staying on your desk or going out into the world with you? We’ll walk you through the process of picking the best external hard drive for you.īest for PC: Western Digital My BookBest for photographers: LaCie RuggedBest for Mac: WD My Passport Ultra for MacBest for gaming: Toshiba Canvio GamingBest with encryption: Apricorn Aegis Padlock How we picked the products # There are some choices you’ll have to make in order to get the correct model.

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