The 16 Best External Hard Drives and SSDs for 2024
Budget
Before you do anything else, consider how much you’re willing to spend on a new hard drive. Compact solid-state drives that use flash memory are more expensive than slower, larger mechanical drives, but they’ve come down in price in recent years. These days, you can pick up a 1TB external SSD for as little as $65 or so. Very high-capacity SSDs tend to be quite pricey, so if you’re looking for a lot of storage for a reasonable price, you’ll probably want to opt for a mechanical drive.
Capacity
External drives start at 500GB and go all the way up to 22TB or so. For many people, especially if you’re looking for a faster SSD, the storage sweet spot is 1TB or 2TB. If you need more, you’ll likely have to decide whether to spend top dollar on a 4TB SSD or go with a cheaper but slower 4TB or 5TB mechanical drive.
Data transfer speed
Solid state drives are delivering increasingly faster data transfer speeds. SSDs that offer the fastest speeds are also quite expensive. You’ll need to decide what kind of performance you want and need based on your use case and the PC you have (to get the fastest transfer speeds, you’ll need a computer with the latest USB technology). Unless you’re regularly transferring huge video files, you probably don’t need a “pro”-level storage device. Keep in mind that even the slowest SSDs are about five times faster than a traditional mechanical drive.
Compatibility
Most external drives are compatible with a wide variety of computers, including Macs, Windows PCs, and Chromebooks. Things get a bit more complicated when you step into the realm of gaming consoles. To store PS5 or Xbox Series X or S games, you’ll need to buy a drive that’s specifically intended for that task. You can use most external drives to store and play PS4 games or standard Xbox One games (outside of the drive), but you’ll need to install an internal drive to store and play PS5 games. For Xbox Series X and S machines, you’ll need to purchase either the WD Black C50 Expansion Card or the Seagate Storage Expansion Card to store and play Xbox Series X or S games.
Security
Some of you may be storing sensitive data on your external storage drive. If so, look for drives that have security features, including encryption.
