The Best External Hard Drives

Just Buy This (All Around Best)

Samsung T9 Portable SSD

$316 $299 at Amazon $135 $115 at Walmart $440 $300 at Samsung

TL;DR: The Samsung T9 is ideal for most high-speed storage needs, if you’ve got the funds.

Why We Recommend It

This latest edition of the Samsung storage series offers a tremendous balance between size, convenience, transfer speeds, and price.

While many drives advertise high speeds, they do so with some caveats (e.g., advertising a peak theoretical speed rather than a reliable sustained speed).

In my experience, the T9 was among the fastest I tested.

It easily handled multi-movie file transfers and served flawlessly as a Time Machine Backup drive. And it nearly sustained the advertised 2,000 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) transfer speed.

Part of the trick is the T9’s thermal guard technology that helps regulate the temperature to ensure the drive can continue to transfer files without overheating.

Another advantage is the durability for on-the-go use. The SSD-based architecture allows it to be tiny, but it also has the benefit of a thick, rubberized shell.

This choice is part of why it earned my top spot; I was not worried about tossing the T9 into my backpack to carry around with me on the go.

The baked-in Samsung software was flakey at best—not allowing me to customize or update the drive in the intended way.

It's not the cheapest price per terabyte. But for me, the T9 is the perfect workhorse.

• Who else recommends it? Top computing publications like PC World and PCMag award the T9 with impressive scores for modern external SSD performance.
• What do buyers say? Over 1,500 Amazon buyers give this drive an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars for reliability and transfer speeds.

Also Great

Western Digital P40

$159 $130 at Amazon $200 at Walmart $300 at Best Buy

TL;DR: With RGB and ultra-fast speeds, the WD Black P40 is a no-brainer for external gaming storage.

Why We Recommend It

Whether you play a lot on your PC or you regularly fill your game consoles' internal storage, the reliable performance of the Western Digital Black P40 SSD is a welcome accessory to reduce storage strain.

You'll find 2,000MB/s read and write speeds, so it's right up there with the main flagship SSD—and that speed is vital for gaming.

In my experience, the WD Black P40 holds its own even with my machine's high-speed internal storage.

I ran triple-A games like Halo Infinite and indie gems like Hades with my handheld PC, and it worked almost as well as if I wasn't using an external hard drive.

Other gaming-friendly features include a flashy, almost industrial design with RGB LED lighting effects. This touch may seem like a gimmick, but now that tower PCs contain entire arrays of lighting effects, your peripherals can follow suit to complement your setup.

There's also a shock-resistant metal shell on the P40 SSD, so it'll go with you where you need it to go without damage.

This hard drive only allows PS4 and Xbox One games to be played from the drive on modern consoles. (PS5 and Xbox Series consoles require specific SSDs to run modern games—an intentional software limitation).

The drive also got hot when I put it through consistent heavy use. This temperature spike is likely because I use the P40 as a network server for streaming my movie collection, so your mileage may vary.

But, if you're looking for a gaming-friendly drive, the Black P40 is well-designed for the task.

• Who else recommends it? Windows Central, TechRadar, and 9to5 Toys tested the WD Black P40 and found it capable for the average gamer.
• What do buyers say? Well over 1,300 Amazon reviewers awarded this drive an average of 4.7 out of 5 stars for its design and quality.

Easiest on the Budget

LaCie Rugged 2TB Thunderbolt

$180 $149 at Amazon $180 $120 at Walmart $110 $80 at Best Buy

TL;DR: If you can sacrifice some speed and sleekness, the LaCie Rugged is a reliable workhorse drive.

Why We Recommend It

While the market has moved mainly toward solid-state drives (SSDs) for reliability and portability, the easiest way to save a few bucks is to go with a hard disk drive (HDD).

The LaCie Rugged series is one of the most reliable lineups in this HDD category, and for my money, it provides the most value without sacrificing too much.

Even though it won’t be nearly as fast as SSDs, it’s one of the fastest HDDs out there, offering up to 130MB/s per second of reliable transfer speeds.

In my tests, it took about three times as long to transfer files as my top-tier SSDs, but it’s much faster than my older HDDs, which are just a couple of years old.

The Rugged series also features its iconic orange bumper around its metal enclosure, making it a truly protected drive.

You must still be careful about big drops because an aggressive jostle can knock the magnetic disk inside too hard.

HDDs also tend to be bigger to contain all these mechanical components, and that’s no different here.

But for nearly half the price of the marquee SSDs, the tradeoffs are worth it for the savings.

• Who else recommends it? PCMag, Tom’s Hardware, and more publications have long supported the performance of the LaCie Rugged line.
• What do buyers say? The LaCie Rugged is well-liked, with an average 4.4-star rating from more than 1,000 reviewers on Amazon.