Compare the Best External Hard DrivesSeptember 2020

External hard drives are portable and used to backup files and data from your computer, so they’re safeguarded in case of accident or for retrieval at a later date. While Cloud-based backups are being used more and more for backups, external hard drives still have several important benefits compared to online backups:

Extras

Finally, there are a wealth of extras that can be found in more advanced models of external hard drives. Some of these may only be useful in specific situations, and you will usually pay more for them, but the utility may well be worth the extra cost. Some examples of extra features include:

External Hard Drive Prices

In total we found 136 external hard drives ranging from $49 to $702. The average price of a new external hard drive is $191 and the 80% of external hard drive are priced between $78 and $349. The most expensive external hard drive that we found is the ioSafe SoloPRO - 3Tb at $702, and the cheapest is the Seagate Expansion Portable - 1Tb at only $50.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

IoSafe external hard drives start at $413 and their most expensive external hard drive costs $702. The highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is ioSafe external hard drives with an average price of $503.

The average price of DataLocker external hard disk is $469 which is the second highest average price of all external hard drive brands. DataLocker external hard disk range in price from $394 to $562.

OWC external hard drives range in price from $155 to $500, and the average price of OWC external hard drives is $301 which is the third highest average price of all external hard drive brands.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have checked 28 expert reviews and 849 user reviews for external hard disk drives and used this data to evaluate the average rating for each brand of external hard drive. Western Digital is the top rated external hard drive brand with an average rating of 91%. Buffalo is the second best brand with 75% and iStorage is the third best brand with 72%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

We found 76 current offers for external hard disks from Adorama making it the biggest external hard drive retailer. That is significantly bigger than the second biggest retailer, Overstock for whom we found 53 current offers for external hard disks. The third biggest retailer is Target with 2 current external hard drive offers.

When Are Most New External Hard Disk Drive Released?

Most new external hard disk tend to be released between June and July. In July 2019, seven new external hard disk drive were released making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. 59 new external hard drives were released in June 2018 making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. In 2017 most new external hard disk drive were released in April, with 28 new external hard disk drive released that month.

How Fast Do External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

On average, in the first 6 months after release, external hard disk drop in price by 1%.

That means a saving of $2 on a typical $190 new external hard drive if you wait 6 months before buying.

Weights

'Weight' denotes the weight of the external hard drive, measured in grams (g).

Comparing all external hard disks, the weights range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of most external harddisks range from 0g to 300g. The ioSafe SoloPRO - 3Tb, which sells for $701.99, has the heaviest weight and is a 6.8kg external hard drive. The external hard drive with the lightest weight is the LaCie Rugged Triple - 1Tb, which is a 100g external hard drive and sells for $149.99.

USB Powered

Whether the hard drive is powered by USB or not.

Of the 811 new external hard drive currently listed on Kagoo, the vast majority are USB powered external hard disk drive. 672 external hard drive (83%) are USB powered external hard disk drive.

Hard Drive Capacities

'Hard Drive Capacity' denotes how much data the hard drive can hold, measured in gigabytes (GB).

The hard drive capacities of external harddisk range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of the majority of external harddisks range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The external hard drive with the biggest hard drive capacity is the Western Digital My Cloud EX2 Ultra - 16Tb, which is a 16TB external hard drive and sells for $699.99. The Western Digital WD My Passport Wireless - 1TB, which currently retails for $164.27, has the smallest hard drive capacity and is a 1GB external hard drive.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Hard Drives?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disk drives. For each retailer it shows the total number of external hard disk drives where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disk. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was Overstock. 44 of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of External Harddisk for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for external hard drives by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of external hard drive prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's external hard drive prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was Overstock. 83% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.