Home Features Best external drives: a buyer’s guide

Best external drives: a buyer’s guide

We look at the hard drives you should consider storing your precious data on

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westerndigital
westerndigital

External hard drives offer computer users the capacity to straightforwardly add storage capacity to computers in a comparatively cheap way.

External hard drives allow users to have an immeasurable amount of storage space that can be added as needed, and with plug and play abilities, external hard drives deliver definitive suitability. External hard drives solve the problem of having to upgrade a computer that has surpassed its built-in storage volume.

For many computer users, installing an extra hard drive on the computer, no matter how easy, is something they are not comfortable doing. In addition, upgrading a computer through a professional can be costly and prevents the use of the computer during the upgrade.

The answer is to buy an external hard drive. Once users become aware of the different types of external hard drives available, their capabilities and ease of use, the decision to buy an external hard drive becomes stress-free.

We look at the options.

1Western Digital My Passport Ultra 
Website: www.wd.com
Price: (£66.99, wdc.com)

When snapping an Instagram-worthy picture of your workstation in the nearest trendy coffee shop, why hide your external storage when it looks just as good as your laptop? The My Passport Ultra from Western Digital is sleek, pairing metallic and matte finishes, so it complements every device!

The WD My Passport Ultra will also be the perfect place to store all your photos that don’t quite make it to Instagram, or those you’re waiting for the perfect moment to post.

2Western Digital 8TB My Cloud Home Personal Storage
Website: www.wd.com
Price: £309 (Amazon)

The My Cloud Home personal storage device from Western Digital gives you one secure place to keep all your important documents, photos and videos safe. With a massive eight terabytes of memory, this drive has plenty of space for everything you want to protect. It is compatible with almost anything you might already use to store your files, ensuring a quick and convenient backup of all your existing content. You can connect external devices, such as flash drives, via the USB port. The My Cloud Home syncs with several online storage services, including Facebook, Dropbox and Google Drive, and wirelessly connects to smartphones, tablets and laptops.

3Buffalo MiniStation Extreme
Website: www.buffalo-technology.com
Price: £70 (Amazon)

 

BUFFALO’s MiniStation Extreme offers high-performance USB 3.0 portable storage in a compact and sophisticated design. The internal hard drive is encased in a highly shock-resistant body with rubberized elements to protect it from accidental bumps. The ingenious arrangement of shock protection features meets the U.S. Military Standard MIL-STD-810G, METHOD 516.6, Procedure IV and has passed free-fall drop tests with drops up to 1.2 meters*. Moreover, the USB cable is integrated into the case so you will not be frustrated searching for a cable anymore! The USB 3.0 interface moves data at rates of up to 5Gbps. This vastly reduces the time needed for data transmission, making it ideal for transferring and sharing videos, large digital photo collections, music files, and other data-intensive digital content. MiniStation Extreme is available with 500 GB, 1 TB, or 2 TB capacities. All capacities are available in black; 1 TB capacity is also available in red or silver.

4Apricorn Aegis Padlock Desktop drive
Website: https://www.apricorn.com/aegis-padlock-dt
Price: £179 (Amazon)

Simple to set up, software-free and providing on-the-fly AES Hardware Encryption, the Aegis Padlock DT delivers our widest range of storage capacities, from 1TB up to the massive 10TB, making it the perfect desktop secure storage device for large amounts of sensitive data and big files. Featuring 256-bit hardware encryption, the Aegis Padlock DT seamlessly encrypts all data on the drive on the fly, keeping your data safe even if the hard drive is removed from its enclosure.