- #BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES HOW TO#
- #BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES INSTALL#
- #BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES PORTABLE#
- #BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES PRO#
- #BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES PLUS#
In recent years we have witnessed the solid-state drive revolution. These traditional hard drives have largely fallen out of favor for use as system drives, but their larger capacities and much cheaper per-gigabyte cost means they are still a very popular choice for external storage use. These have moving disks (called platters) inside, where the data itself is written and read. Most hard drives, until recently, were mechanical HDDs. Storage drives mostly fall into two main categories: traditional hard drives, or HDDs, and solid-state drives, or SSDs. For more details about external hard drive designs and features to look for when making your purchase decision, read on. If your external HDD or SSD is just for file storage, then this is rather simple, but if you’re going to be regularly reading and writing to your external storage (for example, doing video editing right from the drive itself rather than from your computer’s system drive), you’ll want to be sure you get something that has good read and write speeds and that uses up-to-date connectivity standards such as USB 3.0. What exactly you are using your hard drive for will also factor into your purchase decision.
#BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES PORTABLE#
If, on the other hand, you’re frequently ferrying data around from one PC to the next, then a portable hard drive might be a better choice, even if you’re sacrificing some storage space for a smaller footprint.
As cheap as storage is per gigabyte nowadays, the classic trade-off of hard drive size versus portability still holds basically, is your primary consideration storage space or physical size? If your external hard drive is for home and office use at a single workstation and will more or less sit in one place, then storage space is more valuable than mobility.
The first two steps of choosing an external hard drive are setting your budget and determining what size you need.
#BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES HOW TO#
Fitbit Versa 3īuy at Office Depot How to choose an external hard drive You may also want to check out our lists of the very best NAS for home and best NAS for Plex. We've gone into detail on how to pick the right NAS to work with your Plex media server, and these drives will fit the bill perfectly. Then you've got SSDs like Synology's SAT5200 range for ultimate performance. If you need even more performance, go with Seagate IronWolf Pro, which will provide 7,200 RPM motors that can allow for up to 250MB/s of sustained data transfer, with bursts of around 6Gb/s.
#BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES INSTALL#
This extra speed found in higher capacity drives from Seagate means increased access speeds, which is essential for storing and loading files on your server - looking for hard drives to install into your NAS? Go with the Seagate IronWolf. Everything else is pretty much identical between the two storage families.
#BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES PRO#
Seagate comes out slightly on top since Western Digital doesn't offer any 7,200 RPM drives unless you pay more for the Red Pro series. Desktop-class hard drives aren't designed to be operating continuously, and they're not backed by extended warranties, nor do they come with advanced protective features you find on NAS drives. While you can technically use a traditional desktop-class drive, I'd recommend against doing so. All of the drives mentioned here fit that bill. Whether you go with Seagate, Western Digital, or another brand, it's always a good idea to pick up a hard drive designed for NAS use. What makes WD drives appealing is that every capacity option has vibration protection, but if you need faster speeds (drives that run at 7,200 RPM), you will need to fork out more for the higher capacities or Red Pro series.
It's also worth noting that WD doesn't ship any mounting brackets or screws with these drives.
This particular series of drives comes in 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB, and 14TB versions.Įach drive comes with the company's NASware 3.0 for enhanced reliability and performance. Red isn't the fastest hard drive series on the market, but using them in a RAID formation can make up for this.
#BEST MOST RELIABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES PLUS#
WD's Red Plus hard drives are manufactured for NAS use and can be deployed in systems that support up to eight bays.īacked by three-year limited warranties and a powerful brand in the storage market, WD drives are well known to be of top quality, and they last a long time. As with the Seagate drives, I recommend at least 4TB. Much like Seagate, WD has been making storage solutions for PCs for many years, and it offers reliable drives for any NAS.