

Whether price, design, or size is most important to you, we can help you find the external hard drive that is right for you. To help you find one, we’ve reviewed all of the features and narrowed down the choices to the best in five categories that should fit most uses and budgets. This will be important if you plan on taking your drive with you or if you just want to know how much space it will take up on your desk. Not to be confused with capacity, we’re talking about the physical dimensions of the drive. The drive’s warranty length indicates how reliable it is, and some companies offer services if your drive fails.

Your files are important to you, and you want to be sure they will be safe on your drive. Obviously, faster is better, so be sure to make note of what speed you are getting. This is the speed at which files are transferred between your computer and the external hard drive. For most people, 1 or 2 terabytes should suffice, but if you are planning to store video or other multimedia files, you may want to go with something larger. External hard drives are available in many storage capacities. Which you choose will depend on your budget and what features are most important to you. HDDs are cheaper and come in larger capacities, while SSDs offer greater transfer speeds and greater reliability, since they have no moving parts. Like internal hard drives, external hard drives come in two types: hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD). 5 things to know about external hard drives before buying:
