Best External Hard Drive (2025): SSD to Store Data, Video & More

If you run Outside the storage space on your laptop or you must save your data and store this back -up of videos that you will edit one day (I am, I swear), an external hard drive can solve your problem. The problem is that there are hundreds of driving options ranging from dirt to crazy dirt – which is good for your needs? I tested dozens, through operating systems and with different cases of use in mind, to find the best external hard drives for storage, backups, games, video editing, storage devices (NAS), etc.

Consult our other guides, including how to save and move your photos between services, how to save your digital life and how to save your iPhone.

Updated in September 2025: we added the Ultra Compact Seagate SSD, the new Robust SSD4 of LaCie and the Corsair Ex400U, and we crowned the new Samsung 990 the best internal SSD. We have also updated prices and links everywhere.

Best for backups

Photography: Western Digital

Digital western

Office hard drive elements

For incremental backups, which we recommend, speed is not a huge factor. This is why the first reader I recommend is this hard disk of Western digital elements. I have been using a variation in the office hard disk of the elements to make incremental backups of my data for more than a decade. These discs are large and require external power, but they are among the cheapest and most reliable training I have used.

The transfer speeds are not out of the graphics – the element reader I tested marked 120 mega -cells per second (MB / S) for sequential entries on Windows, but again, you should ideally run backups anyway, and even at these speeds, medium PC backup will be done in the morning. These discs use USB-C with the support for USB 3, and I had no problem using them with Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Storage options go up to 20 teraoctets. Just check the prices; Sometimes you can get a reader of 10 or even 12 TB for not much more than the 8-terracted version. And I did not see a huge difference between the line of the elements, the WD my book drives or the wd my passport. The readers of my passport master a premium price because they are smaller, and the readers of my book have encryption features that increase the price, but I find that the basic elements reader is sufficient for most people.

Other major backup discs

• Expansion of Seagate 8-TB Dride External for $ 159: Seagate is another reliable player manufacturer. It never hurts to have more backups, and if you want several backups, use readers of different brands, as it will reduce the chances that the two fail simultaneously.

Best for portable backups

Photography: Scott Gilbertson

Digital western

My ultra passport

If you travel a lot, you will want something easier to transport than the elements of the elements, which are not the best in a suitcase. For travel backups, I love the my passport series from Western Digital, in particular the new “Ultra” version, which uses a standard USB-C cord, eliminating the need to transport a separate cable. It is not the thinnest reader on the market, but it has less than an inch thick and solid enough for me to worry about throwing it in my bag. (Although it is said that it is a spinning reader, so do not literally launch it.) Also I like that the corners are well rounded and there is no screw or anything else that will catch the fabric in your bag.

There is a variety of colors available and you can go from 1 TB to 6 TB. I tested the 5 TB model, but Western digital claims the same speeds regardless of the size of the reader. I tested it using Crystaldiskmark on Windows, AmorphousDiskmark on MacOS and Kdiskmark on Linux and on average the results to find 121 MB / s for the reading speed and the 115 MB writing speed. This is not what you would like to quickly copy photos for a client in the field, but fast enough to perform a daily backup in your hotel room.

Other portable backup readers

• Western Digital Elements 5-TB HDD Portable for $ 130: This disc is slightly thinner than our superior choice, but feels more fragile in my experience. The speeds are also a little slower, but if you have a budget, it will save you a little money. Corsair markets this as a good way to save your images from your iPhone Prores, and although it certainly works for this, performance is limited by the iPhone USB-C interface. For maximum flow, connect it to a PC with a USB4 or Thunderbolt 4 port.

The Thunderbolt 5 Drive: when the speed is everything

Photography: Scott Gilbertson

LaCie has updated its robust SSD line with the Rugged Pro5. This one abandons the iconic orange padding for blue, but it is otherwise like the ordinary coated training of LaCie outside. Inside, it is an incredibly fast training. The 5th in the name is for, you guessed it, Thunderbolt 5, which, although it is announced, apparently forever, was painfully slow to flow on the market. It made the tests a little delicate, but fortunately, a friend let me borrow his brand new MacBook Pro 14 for tests. And the results were impressive.

Lacie claims reading / writing speeds up to 6,700 MB / s and 5 300 MB by testing the highest speeds, file transfers were 5,787 MB / s of reading and 5,188 MB written – which, although, do not quite correspond to the complaint, is still by far the fastest reader on the page. But raw speeds are only numbers for calculation sheets; I was more interested in the performance of the real world. Since I also tested the Nikon Z6iii (8/10, Wired recommends), which can draw 6k Prores RAW, I loaded a little sequences on the Pro5 and I was indeed able to modify using Davinci Resolve Studio.

The drawback here is the price. At $ 600 for the 4-TB version (which is the minimum you want to work with the Prores RAW video files), this is a very expensive reader. However, it is well worth the money if it is the speed you are looking for.

Best USB4 player

Photography: Scott Gilbertson

If you do not yet have devices with the Thunderbolt 5 support, this Thunderbolt 4 reader would be my recommendation for anyone obsessed with speed. The ex400U of Corsair is an impressive small training, constantly offering speeds of approximately 3,800 MB / s for a sequential reading and 3,550 MB / s writing. Again, this will only be possible if you have a device that supports USB4 / Thunderbolt 4 (including recent MacBooks, Dell XPS and others – see our guide for the best laptops to find out more). Technically, just when I finished this update, the new Robust SSD of Lacie was released which beat this disc in my tests of about 10 MB / s, but this reader is smaller, lighter and cheaper.

I also like that Corsair has included a Magsafe connector on the back of the case, which makes an excellent option to save your iPhone Prore video sequences.

Best budget portable SSD

Photography: Scott Gilbertson

These crucial discs are my preferred general use external storage discs. They are at a reasonable price (for a portable SSD) and fast enough for most uses. The X6 is light and tiny, making it a good choice to work in coffee.

It is not a blinding hard drive. In fact, under the hood, the X6 uses an old training interface (fixing series, or SATA), which was more common with hard drives. Thus, although it is small and light, its speed is limited by this old interface technology. In my tests on Windows and MacOS, this corresponds to around 550 MB / s of reading speed and a writing speed of 208 MB / s. It’s good enough for backup and use as an external reader, but I don’t recommend it for Xbox or PlayStation uses. It works well with the iPad Pro.