Best External Hard Drives and SSDs of 2025
budget
Before anything else, you’ll want to figure out how much you’re willing to spend on a new hard drive. Compact solid-state drives that use flash memory are more expensive than slower mechanical drives, but have been priced down over the last few years. Today you can get a 1TB external SSD for just around $65. Very large capacity SSDs tend to be very expensive, so if you’re looking for a lot of storage because you don’t have too much money, you should choose a mechanical drive.
capacity
The external drive starts at 500GB and goes up to around 22TB. For many people, the storage sweet spot is either 1TB or 2TB, especially if you’re looking at a faster SSD. If you need more than that, you’ll decide whether to spend more on a 4TB SSD or choose a more affordable but slower 4TB or 5TB mechanical drive.
Data transfer speed
Solid State Drives offer fast and fast data transfer speeds. The SSD, which offers the fastest speed, is also very expensive. Based on the use case and the PC you have, you need to determine what performance and what performance you need (to get the latest transfer speed you need a computer with the latest USB technology is). Unless you regularly transfer large video files, you probably won’t need a “Pro” level storage device. Note that even the slowest SSDs tend to be about five times faster than traditional mechanical drives.
Compatibility
Most external drives are compatible with a variety of computers, including Macs, Windows PCs, Chromebooks, and more. Things get even more complicated once you enter the realm of gaming consoles. To save a PS5 or Xbox Series X or S game, you must purchase a drive specifically for that task. You can use most external drives to save and play PS4 or standard Xbox One games (drive off), but you will need to install an internal drive to save and play PS5 games. On Xbox Series X and S machines, you must purchase either the WD Black C50 expansion card or the Seagate storage expansion card to save and play Xbox Series X or S games.
safety
Some people may store sensitive data on external storage drives. If so, look for a drive that contains security features, including encryption.