Best external storage drives and hard drives

Every computer requires an internal drive to host its operating system, applications and data. The most popular the hard drive that offer last capacity (up to 3TB) at affordable prices.

Those who want to have the fastest drive to get the best performance out of a high-end system, however, want to opt for solid state drives (SSDs) that can easily offer twice the throughput performance of even the fastest hard drive. SSDs are very expensive but for the performance you get, they are worth the investment.

Internal drive comes in two standard designs: 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch. The former is designed to work with a desktop computer and the latter is mostly for laptop though they can also be used in a desktop. Most SSDs come in the 2.5-inch standard.

An external hard drive has three main purposes: to expand your computer's storage capacity, to backup your data and to share data between computers. It's also easy to use. Most of the time, you just need to plug it into the computer and use it as an internal hard drive. There are desktop external hard drives are based on the 3.5-inch internal hard drives and laptop (or portable) external hard drives that are based on the 2.5-inch internal hard drives.

Generally, external hard drives are connected to a computer using collectively these types of connections: USB 3.0, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA. Portable external hard drives are also often bus-powered, meaning it require only one cable for both data and power connections.

Here's the list of our current favorites. This list is updated regularly as more devices are reviewed.