How to choose the right external hard drive?
The editorial board of Europe 1 did not participate in the preparation of this article.
Despite the democratization of SSDs and the ubiquity of online storage services, the external hard drive retains all its interest. Thanks to the miniaturization and universality of the USB 3.2 standard, very large capacity hard drives, up to 4 TB, are highly portable with a simple USB cable, all without reaching the high prices of external SSDs. While an external hard drive obviously doesn’t offer the same output speed because it’s limited by its mechanical elements, it’s still fast enough to store large amounts of data for a reasonable amount of time and keep it reliable and secure. Whether it’s to expand your console’s game library, back up your photo collection, or always keep your most important files, here’s a selection of our picks. purchase guide of the best external hard drives available in the market.
Summary
- The Seagate FireCuda Gaming 1 TB is an efficient drive for gamers
- LaCie Mobile Drive 1 TB USB-C hard drive for Mac and PC
- The easiest to use Seagate Basic 2TB
- Toshiba Canvio Basics 4 TB large capacity hard drive
- WD My Book 4 TB is a safe choice
External hard drive: 5 models to store your data
The Seagate FireCuda Gaming 1 TB is an efficient drive for gamers
Gamers need more and more storage space. Games are taking up more and more space, and it’s not uncommon for a single title to fill 100GB. To increase the capacity of your console or free up space on the main drive of a gaming laptop, the Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive 1 TB is a USB 3.2 Gen 1 external hard drive designed for gamers, even the smallest ones. So it syncs with the Razer Chroma system to display a colorful atmosphere with 3 RGB LEDs and is available in capacities up to 5TB, enough to store the biggest games.
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LaCie Mobile Drive 1 TB USB-C hard drive for Mac and PC
There may be connectivity issues when purchasing an external hard drive. Many models still use USB-A, still very much available in the PC world, but not necessarily on the Mac. LaCie is a manufacturer well-known to Apple users and offers the LaCie Mobile Drive 1 TB Thunderbolt 3 compatible USB-C connection with its range of hard drives. Fans of the brand will find a characteristic design with clean lines, and if LaCie is popular among Mac users, the hard drive fits perfectly into the computer.
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The easiest to use Seagate Basic 2TB
When it comes to external hard drives, Seagate is one of the most affordable references, and Seagate Basic, as the name suggests, goes straight to the point. Its design is extremely sober and beautiful. It has a USB 3.0 port that is compatible with Windows PC and Mac simply by formatting it on a macOS compatible system. Seagate doesn’t install any backup software on its drive: everything is ready to use, and you can simply back up your files directly from Explorer or Finder.
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Toshiba Canvio Basics 4 TB large capacity hard drive
The Toshiba Canvio Basics series of hard drives offers reliability and ease of use with a maximum capacity of 4 TB, enough to store all your personal data on one drive. The interface used by the Toshiba Canvio Basics 4 TB is the USB 3.2 Gen 1 standard and allows a maximum transfer speed of 5 Gbit/s. If you want to use an external hard drive with an older computer, this is also possible: the drive is USB 2.0 compliant, and if you lose speed, you keep a large storage capacity.
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WD My Book 4 TB is a safe choice
Western Digital has offered MyBook hard drives for a long time now, and they’re a safe bet for automatic backups, especially the Time Machine system on Macs. External hard drives come in a variety of capacities, and this 4TB model is one of the smallest! The WD Backup automatic backup solution lets you use disk immediately to keep your data safe with password protection and hardware encryption.
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What should you pay attention to when buying an external hard drive?
Buying an external hard drive usually comes with no surprises. Nevertheless, it is important to pay attention to certain criteria when choosing. First of all, obviously, the required storage capacity is important. In general, on an external hard drive we are at fairly high capacities with a minimum of 1 TB, which already allows us to store more than 6.6 million pages of text, more than 250,000 photos at 12 megapixels or 500 hours of HD video.
However, the power mode can be different: although most external hard drives from 1 to 4 TB can work independently with a USB cable, some require a power supply. Also pay attention to the USB standard of the drive for connection. Generally, the external drive works on USB 3.0 with backward compatibility with USB 2.0.
Drive compatibility is generally guaranteed, but for use on a Mac, you may need to format the drive to be compatible with Apple’s HFS+ or APFS system.
Finally, depending on the needs, the physical size of the drive should be considered: ample storage at home can be provided with a drive large enough to remain on the table. On the other hand, for mobile use, it is better to opt for a smaller drive that may not have the same performance but will provide good portability.
What are the differences between an external hard drive and an external SSD?
An external hard drive is technologically different from an external SSD. A hard drive is a decades-old technology that stores data magnetically on a platter with a read head. SSD does not use any mechanism: data is stored on memory chips.
An SSD can access higher data than a hard drive, which is limited by rotational speed and the need to “find” data in the right place.
On the other hand, if an external SSD is a very fast storage solution, it costs more for the same capacity and requires a new computer with a USB-C or Thunderbolt port to get the most out of it.
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