Compare the Best External Hard DrivesOctober 2019

External hard drives are portable and used to backup files and data from your computer, so they’re safeguarded in case of accident or for retrieval at a later date. While Cloud-based backups are being used more and more for backups, external hard drives still have several important benefits compared to online backups:

Extras

Finally, there are a wealth of extras that can be found in more advanced models of external hard drives. Some of these may only be useful in specific situations, and you will usually pay more for them, but the utility may well be worth the extra cost. Some examples of extra features include:

External Hard Drive Prices

External hard disks range in price from £29 to £729 and in total we found prices for 347 external hard disks. A new external hard drive costs on average £133 and 80% of external hard drive are priced between £45 and £286. The cheapest external hard drive that we found is the Toshiba Canvio Basics - 500Gb at only £30, and the most expensive is the LaCie 2big Thunderbolt 2 - 6TB at £728.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

IoSafe external hard drives start at £335 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £421. The average price of ioSafe external hard drives is £379 which is the highest average price of all external hard drive brands.

IStorage external hard drives range in price from £118 to £706, and the second highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is iStorage external hard drives with an average price of £293.

The third highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is G-Technology external hard drives with an average price of £259. G-Technology external hard drives start at £56 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £688.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have evaluated 273 expert reviews and 1,643 user reviews for external harddisk and used this information to calculate the average rating for each brand of external hard drive. The top three external hard drive brands are Western Digital, Seagate and Buffalo. Western Digital has an average rating of 87%, Seagate has an average rating of 76% and Buffalo has an average rating of 75%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

The biggest external hard drive retailer by number of products currently for sale is Amazon UK. We found 112 current external hard drive offers from Amazon UK. The second biggest retailer is Ebuyer Business with 66 offers. That means Amazon UK is much bigger than Ebuyer Business when it comes to external harddisks. eBay is the third biggest retailer with 52 current offers.

When Are Most New External Harddisk Released?

The most common period for new external hard drives to be released in is between June and July. 59 new external hard disks were released in June 2018 making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. In 2017 most new external hard drives were released in July, with 36 new external hard drives released that month. October was the biggest month in 2016 for new external harddisk, with 42 new external harddisk released that month.

How Fast Do External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

In the first 6 months after release, external hard disks drop in price by 1% on average.

If you are prepared to wait then you could save an average of £1 on a typical £133 new external hard drive by waiting 6 months before buying.

Weights

'Weight' denotes the weight of the external hard drive, measured in grams (g).

Across the range of external hard disk drive, the weights range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of most external hard disk drives range from 0g to 300g. The external hard drive with the heaviest weight is the ioSafe Solo G3 - 4Tb, which is a 6.8kg external hard drive and is on sale for £376.78. The external hard drive with the lightest weight is the Integral USB 3.0 Portable SSD External Hard Drive - 256GB, which is a 41g external hard drive and is priced at £108.99.

USB Powered

Whether the hard drive is powered by USB or not.

Of the 852 new external hard drives currently listed on Kagoo, the vast majority are USB powered external hard disks. 80% of external hard drives are USB powered external hard disks.

Hard Drive Capacities

'Hard Drive Capacity' denotes how much data the hard drive can hold, measured in gigabytes (GB).

Across the range of external hard disk, the hard drive capacities range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of most external hard disk drive range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The Western Digital My Book Duo - 16Tb, which is priced at £434.24, has the biggest hard drive capacity and is a 16TB external hard drive. The external hard drive with the smallest hard drive capacity is the Western Digital WD My Passport Wireless - 2TB, which is a 1GB external hard drive and can be purchased for £160.32.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Hard Disk Drive?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disk drive. For each retailer it shows the total number of external hard disk drive where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disk drives. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was Amazon UK. 58 of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of External Hard Drives for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for external harddisks by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of external hard drive prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's external hard drive prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was Amazon UK. 51.8% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.