Backing up your most important files to cloud providers is great, but if your internet goes down it’s always good to have a backup close at hand too. That’s where external drives come in, and they even offer a great way to expand your storage for lower-end laptops and portable devices.
With so many drives out there though, how do you know which ones to buy? Should you buy a hard drive or an external SSD? Which version of USB do you need? Do connectors matter? What about encryption? We’ll answer all that and more in our guide on how to choose an external drive, to make sure you get the most for your money.
If you just want to skip to buying an external drive, here’s our list of the best ones available today.
Storage capacity
Arguably the most important specification to consider when buying an external drive is storage space. It’s no good buying a high-speed device with encryption and remote access if it’s not big enough to actually store the information you need. That said, you also don’t want to pay through the nose for a drive you’ll never even come close to filling, so what size should you be aiming for? It depends what you want to do with it.
If you want a device that’s good for transferring documents, photos, or other media from one device to the other, or just want to expand the storage space of your low-end laptop or tablet, then you might be best off with a mid-range flash drive. While the largest of those can stretch up to 2TB of storage space, they get very expensive and are unnecessarily big for this sort of usage. Really you’re better off saving yourself a lot of money and buying something in the region of 64GB.
If you’re interested in storing a lot more or keeping files and folders on there long term, you’ll want something bigger. A 1TB drive should suit most needs for the foreseeable future, but if you envision storing hundreds of movies (maybe you ripped your DVD collection?), or just never want to run out of space, there are drives available today that offer multiple terabytes of space.
Transfer speed
Size isn’t everything, even when it comes to external drives. Transfer speed is incredibly important too, because if you transfer files back and forth to a huge drive on a regular basis, you don’t want to have to wait an age for them to complete.
There are two main factors that play a role in how fast your drive can operate at: The storage technology and the connector it uses. Although some drives are faster than others (and if you want bleeding edge speed, make sure to check reviews of your options) in general, solid state drives (SSD) can process data faster than hard drives (HDD). External SSDs tend to be more expensive than their HDD counterparts and often have less storage capacity. You don’t have to have one or the other, as there are larger SSDs out there, but you will have to pay a premium for it.
In terms of the connector used to hook up your external drive to your desktop, laptop, or mobile device, there are several common options to consider. Most drives today use a USB interface, but there are several generations that have some distinct differences — most notably with transfer speed. USB 2.0 is an old standard and should be avoided if you’re doing anything but making infrequent small file transfers. USB 3.0 offers a substantial increase in speed (up to 5Gbps), while USB 3.1 (sometimes called USB 3.1 Gen 2) is becoming more common and offers up to 10Gbps transfer speeds. Devices that support Thunderbolt 3 offer the fastest connection medium out there, capable of transferring media at up to 40Gbps.
Some older devices use alternative connectors like eSATA and Firewire, but due to their reduced relevance, they should be avoided.
Security
If the data you store on your external drive is sensitive in any way, encrypting the data is a good idea. There are many drives out there that are compatible with software encryption solutions and those are fine for most people, but for those who take their data security more seriously, you want to find a drive with hardware encryption. If you’re extremely security conscious, you could even opt for a physical security system like the pin-code input on the Apricorn Aegis Padlock drive.
Some drives will also come with strong casings to prevent physical tampering. While Kingston’s Ironkey flash drives don’t offer the same storage capacity as full-scale drives, they have a secondary security layer in that their drive PCBs are dipped in a resin that makes it hard for anyone to access the internal memory chips.
Extra features
There are a multitude of different external drives out there, and that means stiff competition. While all of the above features and specifications are worth considering before anything else, there are some other neat features you can look out for if you’re still unsure which drive to go for.
Some offer Wi-Fi connectivity for easy file access, and some offer better warranties than others, so if you are at all concerned about reliability, picking one with a long warranty is a good idea. You might also consider the cables that the drive ships with — if your laptop or phone has USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 connections and your drive only comes with a USB-A cable, factor in buying another cable or an adaptor.
