Compare The Best Seagate External Hard DrivesJuly 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:

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:

Seagate External Hard Drive Prices

We currently list 20 Seagate external harddisks ranging from $25 to $253. A new Seagate external hard drive costs on average $98 and 80% of Seagate external hard drives are priced between $55 and $158. The Seagate Backup Plus - 8TB is the most expensive Seagate external hard drive that we found at $253, and the Seagate Expansion - 2TB is the cheapest at only $25.

Price Range of Seagate External Hard Drives

Seagate external hard drives start at $25 and their most expensive external hard drive costs $253. The 13th highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Seagate external hard drives with an average price of $98.

How Good Are Seagate External Harddisk?

We have evaluated 258 expert reviews and 1,510 user reviews for external harddisk and used this data to evaluate an average rating for Seagate external harddisk of 76%. This makes Seagate the 2nd best external hard drive brand according to customer reviews.

When Are Most New Seagate External Harddisks Released?

We looked at the release dates for new Seagate external hard disk drive over the last 3 years, but couldn't see any prominent trend. In February 2019, 11 new Seagate external harddisk were released making it the biggest month that year for new Seagate external hard drive releases. May was the biggest month in 2018 for new Seagate external hard disk drives, with three new Seagate external hard disk drives released that month. 18 new Seagate external hard drive were released in July 2017 making it the biggest month that year for new Seagate external hard drive releases.

How Fast Do Seagate External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

Most external hard disk drives drop in price by 0% in the first 6 months after release, however Seagate external hard drives tend to depreciate faster. New Seagate external harddisk drop in price by an average of 6% in the first 6 months after they were first released.

If you are prepared to wait then you could save an average of $11 on a typical $191 new Seagate external hard drive by waiting 6 months before buying.