Compare the Best External Hard DrivesFebruary 2019

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:

Capacity

The main important consideration when choosing an external hard drive is the capacity. This Is a measure of how much data the drive can hold, and is measured in gigabytes (Gb) or terrabytes (Tb) . A gigabyte is 1000 megabytes, and a terabyte is 1000 gigabytes. Our drives range from relatively small portable 120gig drives to enormous 5Tb drives, which can safely hold all the data from multiple machines at once. Generally speaking the higher the capacity the better, but it does depend on what you’re going to be backing up. If you only use your computer to store documents, low-res photos and the like, a 2-500 gig drive should be enough. On the other hand, large capacity drives are useful for storing RAW photos, video editing or Photoshop files.

Size & Portability

Hand in hand with the capacity of the drive is its size. Generally speaking, the larger the capacity of a drive, the bigger it is. Small-capacity drives are extremely portable, being no larger than a mobile phone, so can be transported very easily. On the other end of the scale, the very large capacity drives are not meant to be portable, and usually sit in or under your desk as a safe deposit for all your data. Portability and weight will only become a real issue when choosing the very high-capacity drives, but it is worth paying attention to if you plan on transporting the drive frequently.

Read/Write Speeds

Read & write speeds measure how quickly data can be written from & to the external hard drive. This is measures in bytes per second - the higher the speed, the faster large files (such as movies) will be transferred onto or from the drive. The read-write speeds are also affected by the USB version supported - USB 3.0 supported drives allow far higher transfer rates than USB 2 drives, so it is worth seeking out the newest drive you can for the fastest data transfer speeds.

Power

On the subject of USBs, external hard drives are powered by 2 main methods: via USB or externally power lead. Smaller drives will be powered via USB - this means that the same lead that transfers the data also powers the device. This means no battery, no extra leads, and they are far more portable. Larger drives may be so big and powerful that USB alone can’t provide enough power - in which case they may need an external power connection to properly function. This means that extra consideration has to be made for a spare power socket and the required leads - making them less use when on the go.

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 147 external hard disk drive ranging from $49 to $5,200. On average, a new external hard drive costs $307 and 80% of external harddisks are priced between $75 and $500. The Western Digital WDBEPK0010BBK-WESN is the cheapest external hard drive at only $50, and G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL - 64Tb is the most expensive at $5,200.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

G-Technology external hard disks range in price from $65 to $5,200, and the highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is G-Technology external hard disks with an average price of $735.

The second highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is ioSafe external hard disk drives with an average price of $558. ioSafe external hard disk drives range in price from $413 to $702.

The third highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is DataLocker external hard drive with an average price of $478. DataLocker external hard drive range in price from $394 to $562.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have checked 780 expert reviews and 2,949 user reviews for external hard drives and used these reviews to calculate the average rating for each brand of external hard drive. The top three external hard drive brands are G-Technology, Silicon Power and Western Digital. G-Technology has an average rating of 88%, Silicon Power has an average rating of 88% and Western Digital has an average rating of 88%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

The biggest external hard drive retailer by number of products currently for sale is Adorama. We found 141 current external hard drive offers from Adorama. The second biggest retailer is Overstock with 51 offers. That means Adorama is more than twice as big as Overstock when it comes to external hard disk. Target is the third biggest retailer with 22 current offers.

When Are Most New External Hard Disks Released?

June to July is the most common period for new external harddisk to be released in. For the latest external hard drive features you may want to think about waiting until June 2019. It's also worth keeping in mind that the price of the current external hard drives tend to drop off when the next models are released. Last year most new external harddisks were released in June, with 59 new external harddisks released that month. 36 new external hard disk drives were released in July 2017 making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. In October 2016, 43 new external hard drives were released making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases.

How Fast Do External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

On average external hard drive drop in price by 1% in the first 6 months after release. That means that on a typical external hard drive costing $306 you could save on average $4 by waiting 6 months before buying.

Weights

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

Across the range of external hard disk drive, the weights range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of most external hard drives range from 0g to 300g. The external hard drive with the heaviest weight is the G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL - 48Tb, which is an 11.4kg external hard drive and sells for $4,399.95. The external hard drive with the lightest weight is the LaCie Rugged Secure - 2Tb, which is a 100g external hard drive and can be purchased for $139.99.

USB Powered

Whether the hard drive is powered by USB or not.

Of the 836 new external harddisks currently listed on Kagoo, the vast majority are USB powered external hard disks. 668 external harddisks out of 836 are USB powered external hard disks.

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 hard drives range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of most external hard drives range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The external hard drive with the biggest hard drive capacity is the G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL - 64Tb, which is a 64TB external hard drive and is available at $5,199.95. The external hard drive with the smallest hard drive capacity is the Seagate STEA500400, which is a 500GB external hard drive and can be purchased for $49.99.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Hard Disk?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disk drive. For each retailer it shows the total number of external hard disk drive where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disks. 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 Adorama. 92 of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of External Hard Disks for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for external hard disks 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 Adorama. 65.2% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.